The Obama team joins the anti-czar movement

In a hugely encouraging development, The New Republic reports that the Obama transition team hopes to avoid using the word “czar” in the coming administration. I’ve already had my say on this czarophilia, so I’ll let Kevin Drum, who tipped me off to this important news, get his two cents in:

Where did this whole czar business come from, anyway? My first recollection of it is Richard Nixon appointing an “energy czar” — in response to oil production peaking in the United States, by the way, not the Arab oil embargo — but a quick glance through Nexis shows several earlier uses. The first one I found was in 1969, when New York City controller Abraham Beame apparently decided the city needed to appoint a “construction czar” to get schools built more quickly. If Nexis went back further, I’d probably find earlier examples.

The usage is pretty obvious — a czar is a ruthless, absolute monarch who can shred the bureacracy and get things done — but when did it first pop into use to describe a political appointee of some kind? Anyone have examples from earlier than 1969?

Why yes I do, Kevin, thanks to the wonderful TIME online archive, which goes back to 1923. The NYT’s online archive goes back further, but I’m trying to be a good corporate citizen here–plus, what I discovered indicates that one may not need to go back before 1923. The word was used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s to describe people with powerful jobs (“the czar of the Metropolitan Opera“), but the modern usage—government official with specific task and special powers—arrived in a big way in 1942. That year saw the appointment of an Economic Czar, James F. Byrnes, and around the same time the nation apparently got a Rubber Czar, a Petroleum Czar, a Food Czar, and a Price Czar. Now I guess it’s possible that there were people with similar titles during World War I, but at that point czars were still real people getting murdered by Bolsheviks rather than quaint historical artifacts, so I doubt it. (If anyone wants to check that out at nytimes.com, more power to you. I’ve got to get back to work.)

So it’s an FDR thing, but Obama doesn’t want to emulate it. So much for that cover story.

Update From the Onion Radio News: Drug Czar Toppled By Drug Bolsheviks.

Update 2 More czar news from Kevin Drum.

usgarance

Hey, you are right about this. My guess is that the government will want some power, but not the reputation of having nationalized the auto industry (so it is another reason to avoid tsar or supervisor). What about “chief auditor”? Not enough power in it? Controller would imply verifying after the fact, but I do not think it is necessarily true with an auditor representing the government. If not “regulator” has the notion of rule in it. These two terms have the advantage of not looking permanent.
vbierschwale

The media tells us that unemployment is about 8 percent

Eight percent of 200 million is 16 million.

The whisper number that includes the people not counted or those that have given up is about 13 percent

Thirteen percent of 200 million is 23 million.

I think that unemployment is about 20 percent.

Twenty percent of 200 million is 40 million.

Now lets put that into dollars and how it affects America and how it Affects our retailers, manufacturers and raw material producers

Using an average salary of 50,000 dollars

16 million people out of work would take 800 BILLION out of the economy, of which 240 BILLION would be taken from your town, your county, your state and your countrys budget and 560 BILLION would be taken from our retailers, manufacturers and raw material producers

23 million people out of work would take 1 TRILLION 150 BILLION out of the economy, of which 345 BILLION would be taken from your town, your county, your state and your countries budget and 805 BILLION would be taken from our retailers, manufacturers and raw material producers.

40 million people out of work would take 2 TRILLION out of the economy, of which 600 BILLION would be taken from your town, your county, your state and your countries budget and 1 TRILLION 400 BILLION would be taken from our retailers, manufacturers and raw material producers.

Now do you see why GM is having a tough time making ends meet ?

And no amount of bailouts are going to solve the problem.

It will take jobs.

It will take our political and corporate leaders waking up and realizing that their insistence on sending our jobs overseas is destroying the whole world’s economy.

Why the whole World’s economy ?

Because American consumers are the biggest spenders in the World and they want things and as long as they have money, they will buy these things.

A lot of them are made in other countries.

So when the American consumer has to stop buying because they no longer make what they used too, the trickle down effect, affects the whole World.

Right now, our experts and our political and corporate leaders are in denial.

They say that what is good for them is good for America.

We need to work together to get them to see what they are doing to America and the rest of the World.

If we can’t do that, we need to use our vote and get somebody in there that will put their town, county, state and country first.

Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com