December 2, 2002
JOE LIEBERMAN'S HUD SECRETARY (via Charles Murtaugh):
Ex-Aide Insists White House Puts Politics Ahead of Policy (NY Times, December 2, 2002)In an interview with Esquire magazine, [John] DiIulio said: "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.""Mayberry Machiavellis" is Mr. DiIulio's term for the political staff and most particularly Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief adviser. He describes Mr. Rove as "enormously powerful, maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political-adviser post near the Oval Office."
Mr. DiIulio says the religious right and libertarians trust Mr. Rove "to keep Bush 43 from behaving like Bush 41 and moving too far to the center or inching at all center-left."
As a result, Mr. DiIulio says, the administration has accomplished almost nothing domestically except Mr. Bush's tax cut and an education bill, which Mr. DiIulio describes as "really a Ted Kennedy bill."
"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. What there is, he says, is "on-the-fly policy-making by speechmaking."
He's a Democrat, an adviser to Gore, and a friend of Joe Lieberman. He turned out to be a legislative lightweight, giving far too much away to his fellow Democrats without actually getting a bill, so Rove undercut him, particularly on the issue of the right of the Salvation Army not to employ homosexuals. It would have been bizarre to allow an initiative which is intended to return moral values to social policy to instead degrade the very religious institutions whose help it seeks.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 2, 2002 1:14 PM
"enormously powerful, maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political-adviser post near the Oval Office."
What about Nancy Reagan's astrologer?
Amusing that DiIulio waited a year to go public against the administration, and then, with all that time to prepare his case, chose a combination of hyperbole and naivete. It shows he's not a player.
Posted by: pj at December 2, 2002 2:58 PMAnd that Lieberman will be announcing his candidacy this month.
Posted by: oj at December 2, 2002 3:05 PMMatt Drudge has DiIulio's memo in full as well as the Esquire reporter's response. DiIulio did an on-the-record interview with the reporter on the telephone, first no-no, and then asked afterwards that it be taken off-the-record -- naive request. Then he followed up with a written memo in which he used such foolish terms as "Mayberry Machiavellis."
There may well be policy problems in the Bush White House, but DiIulio certainly doesn't look like the kind of man to whom you'd entrust a delicate job. Better to have him as a policy advisor than as an operator responsible for negotiating legislation.
didn't lieberman say he would only run if gore did not. boy, it's a real shock to see him getting ready to run, before gore ha even made an announcement.
anyway, wouldn't it be great to see these two go up againt each other. For that matter add in geppy and daschy, this will be alot of fun.
Did you just describe a matching of wits between Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt as "alot of fun"?
Posted by: oj at December 2, 2002 8:38 PMThe irony of their delusion in desiring the Presidency and believing they can win is unimaginably classic.
Posted by: neil at December 2, 2002 10:49 PM