The GOP’s czar war

Has President Obama named too many policy ‘czars,’ or are Republicans overreacting?

President Obama’s White House has “an unprecedented 32 czar posts,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in The Miami Herald. This “new class of federal officials” is largely free from congressional oversight and approval—a clear and “dangerous" affront to the separation of powers laid out by our Founding Fathers. If Obama insists on having a “car czar,” “pay czar,” and “information czar,” to name a few, they need to be "vetted”—just look at Van Jones.

Unprecedented? President Bush appointed 46 people to 36 “czar” positions, said Steve Benen in The Washington Monthly. “If even just one Republican lawmaker or Fox News personality had expressed even the slightest concern” then, this “absurd” Glenn Beck–driven “tantrum” over “entirely routine” offices—some created by Congress, others confirmed by the Senate—would have more credibility.

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