About Us

Centrist Zealot was born from a series of lunchtime discussions between two friends, Schmitty and Bernard,  sharing political perspectives of a decidedly different nature. On a near-daily basis, Schmitty and Bernard disagreed, but respectfully and humorously so.

Yet these inveterate political junkies discovered that the differences between them were starkly less important than the shared emphasis on finding a solution. In America’s highly charged political climate, the voices of reason are largely gone. Network news shows openly advocate for one political party or another; lobbyists and connected insiders dubiously appear as “objective” voices in news coverage; litmus tests abound to be considered a “true believer.”

Much like moderate Islam, extremists at either end of the spectrum drown out more reasonable voices, simply for the fact that they feel they have license to do so.

We’re not taking it anymore. We are pushing back. America is too important a place, concept and country to allow it to be highjacked by talking-head jack-rollers and dilettantes. And oh yeah, we’ll try to be funny too.

Our Editors:

Schmitty has always been a news and political junkie. As a teenager he used to read the paper and watch the news every day. He’d even sit through “Meet The Press” and political conventions. (Is it any wonder he never got laid?)

He leans to the left but dresses to the right.

Schmitty has lived on both coasts and the Midwest. Mostly because the police keep finding him. He currently resides with his children and their Russian step-mother in an old oil tanker floating off the coast of Oregon.

He has a dog also named Schmitty so he can blame the mess on the carpet on someone. Each will lift his leg whenever Karl Rove is mentioned.

He is currently working on a new children’s book.

Bernard Probst is a man of eclectic experiences and interests, and his essays have enthralled and infuriated readers of CZ since 1969.

He collects fine china while sipping Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, and reads the works of Proust, Spinoza and Sartre while clad in Hugh Hefner’s bathrobe (literally Hef’s robe – Probst won it during a poker game at the Mansion in 1982).

Probst reflects the working-class sentiment of American populism, sprinkled with the gritty cynicism of a veteran political junkie hopelessly at odds with a system gone wrong, despoiled by hustlers, greedheads, pinko do-gooders, and numbskull “values voters” who have hijacked the American ideal.

He is currently working on a children’s book, “My very first earmark,” based on his experiences as a congressional intern.