Wednesday, August 12, 2009

On...No More Czars!!!!

STOP USING THAT PHRASE!

I have been meaning to write about this topic for a loooooooong time, but I have never got around to it. The topic is Czars. Not the Romanovs or any other of their ilk, but the neo-czars appointed by presidents for the last 25 years. The Drug Czars of the Reagan era were the first (at least to my memory) and that was about it until now. I could handle this one slip. But no more. President Obama or should I say Czar-in-Chief Obama is utterly obsessed with this term. (or someone on his staff--car czar, insurance czar, etc) It is ridiculous and insulting to all democratic Americans to have czar anything. We have elected leaders not autocratic tyrants. Why does anybody think giving someone unlimited power (albeit in a small context) is a good idea? It can only make such abuse seem normal and commonplace to the masses. We never want them getting used to such an reality. Humanity has spent hundreds of years trying to rid the world of despots and this administration has taken an annoyance to a whole new level. They are encouraging the underminding of republican institutions. Enough already.

Lurita Doen in USA Today finally had a piece on this same topic,
HERE, which sparked my thoughts this morning.

PS
LA TIMES had a similar piece back in March. Guess it hasn't slowed the movement.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From what I've seen, with one exception (Drug Czar), the Obama administration hasn't actually used the word "Czar" -- that's all the media. And for the media, that's nothing new. Slate had a good article during the presidential transition on how the term came to be applied : http://www.slate.com/id/2207055/

Mark A. Trexler said...

Thanks for the link. Sen. Byrd I guess wrote the President back in Feb. about these "czars," his concern was whether or not you are using the term its the purpose of these policy advisers and the power they are given that is not in the constitution or approved by Congress (ie Cabinet). With some research I haven't found Team Obama actually use the term exactly. The media though uses it all the time in regards to the advisers, even the NY Times.