Of the core group of hearty Neocons, one remains on the job. He is Don Rumsfeld’s lawyer, William J. Haynes II, the DOD’s general counsel. Haynes had his escape plan carefully charted. The president nominated him to be a judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He expected to have his nomination confirmed, and depart for the bench.
However, something got in the way of his plans.
Viewed in perspective, Haynes’s long campaign can be divided into a significant number of skirmishes. He’s lost all of them, and he just keeps getting more bitter. Just looking back over the last year, there have been four high-profile skirmishes, not counting the innumerable battles behind the scenes in the bureaucratic folds of the Pentagon.
... This would be comical if it weren’t also tragic. But it tells us a lot about the current political dynamic surrounding the Neocons in the Bush Administration and how they band together to fight their rear-guard battles.
... The Neocons have burrowed into a handful of powerful redoubts and they maintain close contact with and support one another. Their bastion was once the Defense Department, but they have been pushed to the margins by Secretary Gates. But OLC and Dick Cheney’s office remain their last strongholds. Interesting how they work in tight connection to fend off attacks and mete out retribution against the enemy. And interesting that they consider competent, totally apolitical professional soldiers who refuse to be intimidated and cajoled as the “enemy.”
