The Political Presidency: Remember John Diiulio? (Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives)

[WatchWhatISay]

One of the few early warnings about how political the white
house really was.




The DiIulio Letter  
October 2002  
Esquire  
 
 
 


Life In The Gulag - Politex, 4 Dec 2002 

On Monday we learned that in a forthcoming Esquire story John
DiIulio, former Bush director of the White House Office Of
Faith-based and Community Initiatives, says that politics, not
policy run the Bush White House, that speeches come first and
policy is hastily and sketchily constructed later, that Bush
is kept on the short leash of far right preconceptions of the
world that often don't jibe with reality, and that fear of
Karl Rove prevents staffers from providing him with news from
the real world that might contradict his extreme, conservative
vision. 

In DiIulio's words, "there is no precedent in any modern
White House for what is going on in this one: complete lack of
a policy apparatus. Besides the tax cut, which was cut and
dried during the campaign, and the education bill, which was
really a Ted Kennedy bill, the administration has not done
much, either in absolute terms or in comparison to previous
administrations at this stage, on domestic policy.

*************************************************************************************************************************************
What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being
run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry
Machiavellis. [They] consistently talked and acted as if the
height of political sophistication consisted in reducing every
issue to its simplest black-and-white terms for public
consumption, then steering legislative initiatives or policy
proposals as far right as possible."

*************************************************************************************************************************************

 The former White House director confides, "I heard many,
many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive
policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers
on domestic issues. There were, truth be told, only a couple
of people in the West Wing who worried at all about policy
substance and analysis ... Every modern presidency moves on
the fly, but on social policy and related issues, the lack of
even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in
knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking: discussions by fairly
senior people who meant Medicaid but were talking Medicare;
near-instant shifts from discussing any actual policy pros and
cons to discussing political communications, media strategy,
et cetera ." DiIulio goes on to tell us that "the
remarkably slapdash character of the Office of Homeland
Security, with the nine months of arguing that no department
was needed, with the sudden, politically timed reversal in
June ..." 


http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2002/021202_mfe_diiulio_1.html

[Erika]

1. W used the religious right to obtain and keep power

He is and has always been a world corporatist in which he is king and his buds become rich beyond their dreams as they redistribute the profits from the working class to the rich in the world.

[hedda_foil]

2. They've had very bad luck with the people in that job.

The past two have been afflicted with an unfortunate tendency to be more ethical than political.

[Erika]

3. I think they are becoming aware they were used for power

by W, Rove or the combination of the two.

I am still amazed that the W political machine was able to convince many of them that W would issue in the 2nd coming. Of course with their naivety, and Falwell and Robertson's backing this idiocy, they were easy prey.