Political Science Professor and former White House staffer John DiIulio issued an apology after the magazine Esquire published quotes in which he railed against the Bush administration.
In the January 2003 edition, correspondent Ron Suskind writes that DiIulio said there is an unprecedented and "complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the White House. He went on to characterize the administration as "Mayberry Machiavellis."
Suskind's article, "Why Are These Men Laughing," is a profile of Karl Rove and his role as policy maker in the White House. Suskind features unidentified White House officials as well as quotes from DiIulio -- who, prior to returning to Penn, headed the president's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
All of the quoted officials criticized the Bush administration for its lack of domestic policy discussion.
In a written apology statement, DiIulio wrote that his comments were "groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples."
"I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful," he added.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer also responded to the article in a press briefing on Monday.
"I dismiss it as nonsense," he told the White House press corps. "I think if there were people like that who talked around here, you all would have found them a long time ago."
Fleischer, too, called the criticisms "baseless and groundless."
DiIulio wrote that he and Suskind "had a long, off-the-record chat." But he does not recall making critical statements regarding Karl Rove.
He claimed that a number of facts were misrepresented and that the article was unfair.
It "is unjustly hard on Mr. Rove and over-the-top complimentary to me," DiIulio wrote.
"I humbly and sincerely apologize to all concerned just the same."
After participating in a number of phone interviews with Suskind in September, DiIulio answered remaining questions in an Oct. 24 memo. In it, he supported the president and his administration.
"President Bush is a highly admirable person of enormous personal decency," his memo read. "He is much smarter than some people... seem to suppose.
"I believe that the best may well be yet to come from the Bush administration," DiIulio's memo continued. "But, in my view, they will not get there without some significant reforms to the... dynamics of the place."
Suskind told CNN's Judy Woodruff that DiIulio's original controversial comments -- which Suskind said were on the record -- were representative of the general sentiment in the White House.
"I think John DiIulio speaks for other people who are in the White House now," Suskind said in the CNN interview. "There's a kind of sense of regret that this administration never embraced the idea that we will... be a place from which ideas emerge."
In the memo, DiIulio cited instances when Bush disregarded political gain in the interest of "human decency."
But DiIulio reportedly told Esquire in one of his phone interviews with Suskind, "there is a virtual absence as yet of any policy accomplishments that might... count as the flesh on the bones of so-called compassionate conservatism."
In a briefing, Fleischer rebutted DiIulio's claim.
"This has been two years of substantial accomplishment working with the Congress to get good policies enacted for the American people," Fleischer said.
Fleischer said DiIulio has spoken with officials in the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and believes DiIulio's apology statement "speaks for itself."
