There's No Time for the Man Called Czar

David Weigel | May 9, 2007

The casting call for a Bush administration "war czar," incredibly, goes on. Over at the impenetrable American Prospect site Steve Benen points out that the Bushies seem to need a czar for everything. I'll save you the trip to the main article - which involves scaling a 33-foot electrified fence and answering the riddle of the Sphinx - and steal his nut graf.

• In 2001, with escalating concerns about possible attacks on our information technology infrastructure, Bush named a "cybersecurity czar."
• In 2003, the president's desire to help his corporate benefactors led to the creation of a "regulatory czar" at the Office of Management and Budget. Around the same time, Bush named his first "AIDS Czar." (He didn't choose wisely -- Bush tapped Randall Tobias, the administration's former top advocate of global abstinence-only policies, who was recently forced to resign after procuring "massages" from a controversial Washington escort service.)
• In 2004, faced with growing discontent over the nation's struggling manufacturing industries, Bush appointed a "manufacturing czar." (He chose the chief executive of a Nebraska company that had laid off manufacturing employees and built factories in China.)
• 2005 was a banner year for czars. In February, Bush responded to revelations about failed national security intelligence by creating an "intelligence czar." Shortly thereafter, we had a "bird-flu czar." A few months after that, following the tragically botched handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina, there was a "Katrina czar."
  

And it all started with Jerome Jaffe, the methadone-loving nogoodnik.