Salon.com Politics | Bold words from a wobbly man

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," declared DiIulio, in the quote that by now has been round the world. "What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

DiIulio is the hero of Suskind's piece, which is due on newsstands this week. Think "Columbo" meets "West Wing": He's the shambling guy in the rumpled raincoat, inevitably disarming his betters with his savvy, his courage, his plain-talking likability. Suskind sets us up early to admire DiIulio as the rarest sort of intellectual: a guy who's capable of growth and change. He made his name in the early 1990s as the author of the "superpredator" theory of juvenile violence -- the notion that the rising tide of juvenile crime was attributable to a demented new breed of kids: fatherless, godless, lawless, utterly without conscience. He teamed up with conservative scold William Bennett to write the book, "Body Count," and soon conservatives jumped on DiIulio's research to call for tougher punishment and an end to the namby-pamby social work approach to juvenile crime.

Then DiIulio, admirably, recanted his theory in the late '90s, when he saw that it was bolstered by little evidence. In fact, he decided, poor urban kids in trouble could change, if they got the right kind of help.

The very day his bracing criticism of Rove and the White House made national news, he apologized to his former colleagues, twice. It was a strange, cringe-inducing spectacle, with language out of a Soviet show trial: He called his own criticisms, as quoted by Suskind, "groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples." Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer had earlier called his complaints "groundless and baseless," so his use of the same terms seemed rote and creepy, like he'd either been beaten up or lobotomized. "I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful," he said in a statement.

Bush and Rove have always placed politics above policy, and they hoodwinked DiIulio and lots of voters that way. Just one example jumps out: During the 2000 campaign, Bush made headlines by attacking House Republicans for trying to slow down payments to low-income working parents who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, an innovative program to reward work that was vastly expanded by the Clinton administration. Candidate Bush said the Republican EITC proposal would balance the budget "on the backs of the poor" -- exactly the kind of compassionate conservative courage that won the hearts of centrists and Democrats like DiIulio. The House GOP backed down. But that was then. Now President Bush stands idly by while conservatives inside and outside his administration propose to cut the credit, slash the funds used to let low-income wage earners know it exists, boost funds to audit those who use it, and perhaps even eliminate it entirely. DiIulio blasts this poor-bashing in Esquire, complaining that he often found himself arguing the merits of EITC "with libertarians who didn't know the basic functions of major federal programs." But he doesn't blame the president who put those libertarians in charge of social programs.

Joan Walsh thinks John DiIulio is wishy-washy with a habit of recanting his words. It is not the "Mayberry Machiavelli's" who are the problem but their leader.