Former professor's talk delayed as remarks on Bush cause a stir

A lecture by John DiIulio, Jr., a former University professor and White House official embroiled in controversy over his critique of the Bush administration, was postponed Monday. University officials said they were told he was sick.

DiIulio, currently at the University of Pennsylvania, was slated to deliver his final lecture Monday afternoon on the separation of church and state in a three-part series run by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. But the program's chair, politics professor Robert George, said he received a call Monday morning from DiIulio's wife, Roslyn, saying that DiIulio had bad stomach pains and could not do the talk.

DiIulio, the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is quoted in an article in this week's Esquire as saying the Bush administration is too politicallymotivated. But DiIulio said Monday that some parts of the article were not accurate and apologized for any misunderstandings.

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of policy apparatus," the article's writer, Ron Suskind, quoted DiIulio as saying.

"What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis," he is quoted as saying. "Besides the tax cut . . . the administration has not done much, either in absolute terms or in comparison to previous administrations at this stage, on domestic policy."

DiIulio is also quoted as questioning the influence of Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, on White House policy making.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called the comments "baseless and groundless."

DiIulio, who is not accepting interviews, issued a statement apologizing for the comments and also labeled them "groundless and baseless."

He explained that Suskind asked him in September for an interview about the Bush administration's domestic and social policies. DiIulio was impressed, he said, with Suskind's previous work and agreed to respond in a single memo to his many questions.

"However, several quotes and anecdotes concerning or attributed to me in the article are not from that response," DiIulio said. "Never did I seek out Mr. Suskind to write a 'pointed critique' or issue a 'manifesto' or any such."

"The article is unjustly hard on Mr. Rove and over-the-top complimentary to me, thereby creating a too-pat contrast that is, I feel, most unfair to Mr. Rove," he continued. "I regret any and all misimpressions."

A copy of the letter Esquire says it received from DiIulio appears on its website.

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In an open letter posted on the Drudge Report website, Suskind defended his article.

"Though Mr. DiIulio's desire to apologize to former colleagues is understandable, his desire to speak truthfully about his experiences at the center of power is to be hailed," he wrote.

"The vast majority of the quotations attributed to Mr. DiIulio in the article are from a sweeping, sober letter he wrote me as I reported the piece," he continued. "As well, our first telephone interview was on the record. At the end of that lengthy interview, Mr. DiIulio respectfully asked whether the preceding conversation could be off-the-record. I declined."

At the University, DiIulio was a widely-praised professor of American politics.

The James Madison Program events coordinator, Judi Rivkin, said the new date of DiIulio's seminar has not yet been set. This lecture was postponed once before.