US History 1973 - 2014 Commonplace Book: Lecture 23, American Politics, 1999 - 2001 (Especially Florida, 2000) (Con't)

There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: complete lack of a policy apparatus. Besides the tax cut, which was cut and dried during the campaign, and the education bill, which was really a Ted Kennedy bill, the administration has not done much, either in absolute terms or in comparison to previous administrations at this stage, on domestic policy. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis. [They] 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.

— John DiIulio, Director of the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives through August, 2001

Introduction to (and explanation of) this quote series can be found here.  Read this tag to see all of them.