Joe Conason: Shutting Down A Truth-Teller. John DiIulio, the former White House point person for Bush's faith-based initiatives effort, recently blasted the Bush Administration, claiming that domestic policy was driven by politics to an unprecedented extent, and even went so far as to refer to Bush and Rove as the "Mayberry Machiavellis". He has since said that his criticisms were "groundless and baseless", but as Conason points out, this isn't a case where someone can claim the usual defense of "I was misquoted." The long letter that DiIulio wrote to Suskind, the author of the Esquire piece (which isn't online yet, although some excerpts are), clearly conveys the substance of his criticisms. DiIulio might be playing the "good soldier" now, but we should not ignore what he put down on paper. And what he put down on paper is damning.