Czars Aplenty

Via the Volokh Conspiracy, an article in Foreign Policy by David Rothkopf who presents the information in a bemused way, drawing no conclusions nor questioning the motives behind these appointments.

It has finally happened. With yesterday's naming of Border Czar Alan Bersin, the Obama administration has by any reasonable reckoning passed the Romanov Dynasty in the production of czars. The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 with the ascension of Michael I through the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in 1917. During that time, they produced 18 czars. While it is harder to exactly count the number of Obama administration czars, with yesterday's appointment it seems fair to say it is now certainly in excess of 18.

In addition to Bersin, we have energy czar Carol Browner, urban czar Adolfo Carrion, Jr., infotech czar Vivek Kundra, faith-based czar Joshua DuBois, health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, new TARP czar Herb Allison, stimulus accountability czar Earl Devaney, non-proliferation czar Gary Samore, terrorism czar John Brennan, regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, and Guantanamo closure czar Daniel Fried. We also have a host of special envoys that fall into the czar category including AfPak special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, special advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia Dennis Ross, Sudan special envoy J. Scott Gration and climate special envoy Todd Stern. That's 18.

In fact, he's not all concerned, "For now we will give them the benefit of the doubt that they will manage it well. " Implying that at some future date, he'll do an assessment and let us know how it all turns out. The following quote from the article lets us know just how impartial he'll be:

But you certainly might want to count people deemed by the media to be the "cyber security czar" or the "AIDs czar" or the "green jobs czar" even if there are reasons to quibble about the designation of one or two of them. I also won't count Michelle Malkin's designation of White House science advisor John Holdren as "weather czar" because as a matter of principle I won't count anything that horrifying woman does. Nonetheless you could certainly call the talented Holdren the nation's science "czar" without stretching things.

Horrifying just about sums it up. The One is using a ploy introduced by that earlier adherent of transparency, the wannabe socialist, Nixon, when he named William E. Simon Energy Czar. Interestingly, the term drug czar was introduced in 1982 by, of all people, Joe Biden.

Why has the One by-passed the ordinary process of appointing officials to government? The obvious answer is that he wants to avoid congressional oversight and make sure these of our employees owe their allegiance not to us, but to him alone.