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White House officials are confirming the impending departure of
John DiIulio, head of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
office. Sources say DiIulio has told senior Bush advisers of his
plan to leave as soon as a smooth transition to a new director can
be arranged.
Claire Buchan,
a White House spokeswoman, says there is no firm date for DiIulio's
departure. DiIulio, who will be the first high-profile official
to leave the Bush White House, plans to return to his teaching duties
at the University of Pennsylvania.
Buchan says
DiIulio's decision was not unexpected. "He has always intended
to leave after six months, so he actually stayed on a little longer
than he committed to do," she said.
When DiIulio joined the administration, several news reports said
he had signed on for six months. In late February, a Washington
Post profile noted, "He's committed to working at least
six months for Bush. He's just as committed to leaving Washington
within two years to return to Penn."
In any event,
DiIulio's departure comes at a moment when the fate of the faith-based
initiative has not yet been decided. The House has passed a significantly
stripped-down version of the initiative — some parts, like expanded
tax breaks for charitable activity, were cut to almost nothing —
and the initiative's future in the Democrat-controlled Senate is
anything but clear.
The initiative — which was one of the president's campaign themes
— is a high priority for the president. "He really, really
wants it," says one administration official of the faith-based
bill. It's not clear what effect the departure of the head of the
faith-based office will have on the bill's progress on Capitol Hill.
While some
critics have suggested that DiIulio lacked the political skills
to help shepherd legislation through Congress, some supporters of
the faith-based initiative say DiIulio, a Democrat, accomplished
his primary goal of lending credibility to the president's plan.
They also
say he was taken aback by the extent of the controversy the plan
set off — criticism from both right and left. "I think he was
genuinely surprised by the way that some of the most vocal Democratic
critics have tried to demagogue the issue," says Joseph Loconte,
a religion fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "He
would rather fight other fights than to deal with some of the demagoguery
of the liberal critics on the Hill."
DiIulio himself
says he has simply done the job he wanted to do. "I've always
said that I agreed to stay for six months, to help launch the initiative,
help mobilize people who would not be traditional friends and allies,"
DiIulio told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I feel
I have run this race."
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