More from the adults are back in charge department:

The DiIulio Dilemma The flap over former Bush White House adviser John DiIulio's cutting criticisms of his former colleagues, followed by his earnest, near-groveling apology — all stemming from a still-to-be-published article in the January issue of Esquire magazine — has obscured another, perhaps more newsworthy aspect of the story. In the piece, a preview of which is available on Esquire's website, DiIulio ridicules the "Mayberry Machiavellis" in the White House, whom he defined, in a letter to the writer Ron Suskind, as the "staff, senior and junior, who 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." While that is news — DiIulio is the first Bush veteran to break publicly with the White House — what is more noteworthy in the article are quotes from two unnamed, senior Bush aides who badmouth the White House staff in a way that is rarely, if ever, seen in print. One quote, attributed to a "current senior White House official," says, "Many of us feel it's our duty — our obligation as Americans — to get the word out that, certainly in domestic policy, there has been almost no meaningful consideration of any real issues. It's just kids on Big Wheels, who talk politics and know nothing. It's depressing. DPC [Domestic Policy Council] meetings are a farce." The other quote, attributed to a "senior White House official," says, "Don't you understand? We got into the White House and forfeited the game. You're supposed to stand for something...to generate sound ideas, support them with real evidence, and present them to Congress and the people. We didn't do any of that. We just danced this way and that on minute political calculations and whatever was needed for a few paragraphs of a speech."