December (Web-only) 2002

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DiIulio: Bush governs by politics rather than principle
John J. DiIulio Jr, former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, says his former boss has been ineffective and lacks principle. "There is a virtual absence as yet of any policy accomplishments that might, to a fair-minded nonpartisan, count as the flesh on the bones of so-called compassionate conservatism," he says in an interview with Esquire magazine (not available online). That, he says, is the result of governing by politics rather than policy. "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says the Democrat and University of Pennsylvania political science professor. "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

But UPI reports that Bush's faith-based initiative will be back with renewed vigor next year. And in World magazine, editor Marvin Olasky blames DiIulio for the initiative's woes: "Under the leadership of John DiIulio last year, the attempt to solicit liberal allies appeared to drive the whole process," he wrote in the magazine's November 23 issue.

So far there's no response from the White House, though one unnamed senior administration official told The Washington Post,"The people who know how this president does business will be able to separate fact from fiction. The president and [senior adviser] Karl [Rove] have an operating premise that people often overlook, which is that good government is good politics, not the other way around."

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