Holdover Democrats Bedevil Bush

Frank Gaffney explores the problem of holdover Democrats on the White House, Defense Department and State Department staffs; such individuals often are loyal to the Democratic Party and their liberal principles rather than to the President, his administration or the country. They are the principal source of the anti-administration leaks that appear in the Washington Post, the New York Times and other newspapers almost daily:
“Foggy Bottom has been a hotbed of covert and occasionally overt opposition to much of Mr. Bush’s foreign and defense policy agenda. This has been particularly true of the department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), an organization staffed by foreign service officers and civil servants who do tours of duty in INR between rotations to overseas and other assignments. Not surprisingly, this bureau’s intelligence products have tended to reflect the policy predilections of State’s permanent bureaucracy, rather than the facts.
“Two INR officials, recent retiree Greg Thielmann and his former subordinate Christian Westermann, have been among the few intelligence officials publicly to attack the integrity of the Bush administration’s case for war with Iraq. The former reportedly fared poorly when given an opportunity to support his charges recently before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Senate staffers have described Mr. Westermann’s charges of politicization of intelligence to be ‘laughable.'”
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the newspapers that print the leaks share the leakers’ philosophy, and therefore describe them as disinterested career public servants rather than as disaffected Democratic moles. But it would help if the White House would take a tougher public line with these disloyal employees and former employees.

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