And the Smell! What, They Can't Afford Soap?

Something has been lost in the furor over new White House adviser Karl Zinsmeister's Stalin-esque revisions of his own quotes when he republished a Syracuse New Times profile on his web site. As Ana points out, here's what Zinsmeister--ironically, that was Howard Zinn's nickname back in his Delta Chi days--said:

"People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings."

And here's what he changed it to:

"I learned in Washington that there is an 'overclass' in this country stocked with cheating, shifty human beings that's just as morally repugnant as our 'underclass.'"

What concerns me isn't that Zinsmeister massaged his quotes. It's that his idea of making that quote more palatable is to describe all poor people as morally repugnant.

UPDATE: I said it first.