I'm not really sure what Brian is getting at here. The fact that there are NeoCons and Christian Rightists and atheists (are there atheists?) in the Bush administration doesn't detract from the outfit's ideological coherence in recent years. It just means they have separate spheres of influence. The Christian Right controls the social policy, while the NeoCons have, at times, governed the international sector. There are business types in there too, and they control regulatory policy. And all these groups unite around Bush because he sections the place off to give them their own personal fiefdoms.
But within these fiedoms, there can still be conflict. The central division in foreign policy has been between Scowcroft-style realists and NeoCons. In the years following 9/11, the NeoCons -- led by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz -- were ascendant. In the last few years, they have lost Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, and a variety of lesser known, but still important, fellow travelers. These are big losses for the NeoCons. And literally every one of these positions has been filled with a realist, Rice-type of some sort. Rice passed over Bolton for Zoellick. Gates succeeded Rumsfeld. Gordon England succeeded Paul Wolfowitz. This dude you don't know succeeded some other guy you didn't know, but who mattered. Cheney's Middle East advisor just quit. And there are more.
And this has been over Cheney's objections. One of the interesting stories in Stephen Hayes book-length massage of the vice-president is that after Bush let Rumsfeld go, Cheney was angry enough to disagree publicly:
