From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from List of czars of the Obama administration) Jump to: navigation, search In the United States the title "czar" is an informal term for certain high-level officials who direct or oversee federal operations on a given topic or who coordinate policies between different departments on a given topic. Examples are drug czar for the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and cyber-security czar for the highest-ranking Department of Homeland Security official on computer security and information security policy. Czar is also used to denote certain high-level, specialized advisors to the President, such as counter-terrorism czar for a Presidential advisor on terrorism policy, and war czar for the President's advisor on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The czar term derives from the title Tsar which was used to designate the Russian, Bulgarian or Serbian monarchs of pre-World War I Europe. A history of English and American czars can be found here: Tsar- English and American.
In the United States, the term czar has been used by the media to refer to appointed executive branch officials since at least the early 1940s.[1] In 1942, The Washington Post reported on the "executive orders creating new czars to control various aspects of our wartime economy." Since then, a number of ad hoc, temporary as well as permanent United States Executive Branch positions have been established that have been referred to in this manner. For example, President Richard Nixon created two offices whose heads became known as "czars" in the popular press: drug czar in 1971,[2] and energy czar in 1973.[3]
The term "czar" has also been applied to officials who are not members of the Executive Branch, such as Elizabeth Warren, named to a Congressional commission to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2009 and described as an "oversight czar",[4] and Senate-confirmed positions, such as the Director of National Intelligence, described as the "intelligence czar" in 2004.[5]
Rationale and criticism Advantages cited for the creation of czar type posts are the ability to go outside of formal channels and find creative solutions for ad hoc problems, the ability to involve a lot of government players in big issue decision-making, and the ability to get a huge bureaucracy moving in the right direction. Problems can occur with getting all the parties to work together and with managing competing power centers.[6] The appointment of "czars" serving the executive branch has been a source of controversy through the years. As early as 1942, an editorial cartoon depicted "Czar of prices" Leon Henderson, "czar of production" Donald Nelson, and "czar of ships" Emory S. Land sharing a throne.[1] More recently, critics of the Obama administration circulated a list of "czars" compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-profit organization. TCS argued, "By our count there are at least 31 active Czars, giving the current administration more Czars than Imperial Russia had in its history."[7] Conservative commentator Glenn Beck has argued that the list of czars is evidence of a "shadow government...giving the Obama administration unprecedented power with virtually no oversight."[8]
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