ALL promotions at the General Officer level require political approval.
The Clintonistas had 8 years to poison our military leadership. My personal military contacts tell me the damage was severe.
You don’t know the half of it. After Tailhook 91' the incoming Clinton administration used that scandal to destroy any officer who was not in favor of a politically correct military. We ended up with women in fighters who could barely fly (one ended up dead) and new problems with fraternization that we did not have to deal with before.
Anyone in leadership who did not agree with the direction the Clintons wanted to take the military was dismissed. We lost lots of very good men, including a man who was the current Blue Angels commander at the time of the fallout from Tailhook. His exemplary record was not enough to save him from the Liberals, and many other great pilots decided it was better to go fly a desk in the corporate world.