publicly stated he wanted the top Pentagon job.

"Of course," he told DefenseOne in March.

The overtone of partisanship in this case, however, is putting a bad taste in some peoples' mouths.

"What concerns me is the possibility the advocates were deliberately trying to get the president's attention by selecting political outlets he'd read or his staff would bring to his attention," added Loren DeJonge Schulman, deputy director of studies and the Leon E. Panetta senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

One of the op-eds was written by Frank Gaffney for Breitbart, another right-wing political news site. The former acting assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs under Reagan over the years has become a controversial figure, and his think tank, the Center for Security Policy, waslabeled as an "extremist think tank" by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, among others, for promoting anti-Muslim policy views, as well as outlandish statements including a claim that a Muslim Brotherhood "operative" directly worked for then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to subvert the U.S. government.

"The president nominates and certainly his opinion matters," DeJonge Schulman said. "But trying to drive his opinion on nonpartisan military officer selection via political outlets' op-ed pages seems to skirt a line of politicization Kwast and his colleagues probably feel uncomfortable with."

In a Thursday phone interview, Kwast said the conversation should be about ideas, not about his position in the Air Force or future roles.

"The American people and Congress are not fully aware of the power of space with the technologies of the