Andrew Sullivan gives some credence to O’Neill’s complaint that this White House is political (and my dog is furry). While Sullivan clearly understands that White Houses are political places, he says that because O’Neill’s comments jibe with John DiIulio’s similar complaints from2002, we have to take the charge seriously. Fair enough. I’m certainly open to the notion that this free-spending, er, I mean compassionate administration is too political sometimes. But let’s not forget another — and little noticed — commonality between O’Neill and DiIulio: They used the same megaphone. Ron Suskind was the filter through which DiIluio’s criticisms trickled — causing DiIulio to apologize profusely, backtrack, restate and clarify when Suskind’s Esquire story appeared. And Suskind is the author of this book. Indeed, this morning O’Neill is backtracking like he dropped his car keys a few miles up the trail in much the way DiIlulio did. Again, I am sure there’s some merit to the “political” charge, but wouldn’t it be even more credible if A) it came from two independent authors and B) the sources of these complaints didn’t revise their versions of the events presented by Suskind?