There is the assumption that it's the political appointees who run things or change things or are the real power players in DC. My experience has always been that the real power in DC is the persistent class of senior bureaucrats just below the political level. The appointees typically last about 12-to-18 months, getting up to speed for most of that period and--maybe--having some actual impact if they're quite focused in their goals. Otherwise they come and go, leaving nary a trace. They may think they run things and we may hold them ultimately responsible, but the truth is they're more powerless than powerful.
This is one of those "the sky is blue" things that I assume everybody and their mother knows.
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Except that my DoD friends bemoan the actions and effects of the Bush appointees, and I personally witnessed the (in this case, unhelpful) influence of the OSD on the coordinated and rational actions of the mildeps during the late Clinton period. In Japan, the bureaucracy is almost fully in charge. Here, they try harder to follow their leaders--to a point.
The fact is, many government employees are patriots, who are very concerned about their country. They can be very cooperative or very disabling, depending on what they perceive to be US interests. Note, for example, that uniformed defense lawyers have been the most effective and loud opponents of the corrupted legal system employed in Guantanamo.
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