As usual Norm "King of the Flip-Floppin'-Flip Floppers" Coleman, junior senator from Minnesota, elected after Senator Wellstone's "accidental" plane accident - is working to continue to whitewash his past affiliation as a radical Democrat from it's Wikipedia entry to one of unflagging allegiance to Resident Bush. But then he didn't want people to know that he followed Bush's voting requests 98% of the time when he entered office so he had that deleted. The guy's beyond a putz but, following instructions from Rove? Come on.
Norm Coleman
The staffers of Senator Norm Coleman changed a description of Coleman as a liberal Democrat in college to an "activist Democrat," and then to "an active college student." They removed references to Coleman's voting record during his first year of Congress, which lined up with President Bush 98% of the time, which cited Congressional Quarterly. They also removed a reference to Coleman being persuaded by Karl Rove to run for senator instead of governor in 2002.
"When you put 'edia' in there, it makes it sound as if this is a benign, objective piece of information," said Erich Mische, Senator Coleman's Chief of Staff, to the Associated Press. Mr. Mische admitted the Senator's office had made the edits, and he would take responsibility for removal of the sentence about the voting record. "That probably should have stayed in there."
"It appears to be a major rewrite of the article to make it more favorable. If they're trying to edit in such a way to change the public record, that's a problem," Jimmy Wales said to the Associated Press about the incident.
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Coleman's decision to run for senator, rather than governor, was sealed during a walk with President Bush in the White House's Rose Garden," rather than Karl Rove. Rove had actually persuaded the former senate majority leader of Minnesota and current governor, Tim Pawlenty, not to challenge Norm Coleman in the Senate elections. Still, other portions of the edit removed references to Karl Rove entirely, and their citations, while accentuating the positive side of several issues, including changing "a budget bill that cut funding from a number of programs" to "a deficit-reduction bill."
