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Bush aid critical { December 3 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,71919,00.htmlhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,71919,00.html
DiIulio Knocks His Own Criticisms of White House
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
WASHINGTON — The president's former faith-based adviser, who resigned in August 2001 to return to private life, said Monday that criticisms of the White House attributed to him in a January Esquire magazine article were "groundless and baseless."
John J. DiIulio Jr., a Democrat who served as the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, apologized several times on Monday, first to the White House for comments attributed to him that he denied having made, and then later in the day apparently to the magazine, which stood by the interview and said DiIulio never denied his underlying critique of the White House's pervasive politicking.
In Esquire's latest edition, released Sunday, DiIulio was quoted criticizing the White House for being too politically charged. In the article, he was attributed as saying that "there is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: complete lack of a policy apparatus."
He also was credited with saying that White House political strategist and domestic policy adviser Karl Rove is "maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political-adviser post near the Oval Office.
"What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis," he was quoted as saying.
On Monday, DiIulio chastised himself over the exchange with author Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner who wrote a piece last summer about the power of departed adviser Karen Hughes.
"John DiIulio agrees that his criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. He sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful," he said in a written statement.
His third-person reference to himself followed an earlier statement in which he claimed that Suskind's piece contained factual errors, mentioned a conversation that never took place and mischaracterized his viewpoints.
"My work schedule being too packed to permit sit-down interviews ... I gathered up [Suskind's] questions and responded in a single long memo in late October 2002. However, several quotes and anecdotes concerning or attributed to me in the article are not from that response," DiIulio said in a written statement.
"Obviously, I cannot speak to the veracity or accuracy of comments in the article by numerous named and unnamed others, but, in my opinion, the article is unjustly hard on Mr. Rove and over-the-top complimentary to me, thereby creating a too-pat contrast that is, I feel, most unfair to Mr. Rove," he wrote.
"I regret any and all misimpressions. In this season of fellowship and forgiveness, I pray the same."
A spokeswoman at the University of Pennsylvania where DiIulio now works said: "Both statements stand as they are. The second is an addendum to the first."
For his part, Suskind points out that he interviewed DiIulio on the record in a telephone conversation prior to the written exchange and confirmed his comments with him before going to print.
"First, it is important to note that John DiIulio stands by the substantive and newsworthy critique of policymaking at the White House I reported in my story," Suskind said in a written statement. "In the end, Mr. DiIulio is the first senior White House staff member to break this administration's code of silence. His is an act of civic education, for which he should not be attacked."
On Monday, the White House appeared to write off the comments attributed to DiIulio, but was clearly not pleased with the magazine article.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer was the first to call the quotes "baseless and groundless" and said DiIulio's apology speaks for itself.
DiIulio has written two articles, including one over the weekend, which criticized the administration for domestic and social welfare policies and its homeland security strategy. He said that he would "not be offering any further comment" on his experience at the White House "or any matters or persons related" to it.
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