Thursday, August 13, 2009

Oh my, the crazee - it hurts! it burns!

31 Czars
I don't watch Glenn Beck et al., and wasn't sure what all the "czar" furor was about (I didn't even know about it). Presidents have been using what are called "czars" for a long time, people tasked with trying to manage very specific issues that require extra attention. FDR had 3 people who were called czars by the media (Prices, Production, Ships) but Nixon is the one who actually called that type of position a Czar. Ford, Reagan, George HW Bush, and Clinton all had a few Czars. George W Bush is the one who really kicked that system into gear. This wiki page lists 10 Czars for Dubya and 13 for Obama. Some are appointees and some had/will have Senate confirmation hearings in both cases. Just how many so-called or not-called czars each of them had seems to be hard to determine definitively.

FoxNews is whipping up frenzy using phrases like "army of czars", tactics that (obviously) work on weak-minded (see video) (really... check it out). Republicans like Cantor and McCain are whipping it up too. This must seem like proof that Obama is turning the USA into Russia - with sooooo many czars -- but, wait a minute! The Socialists in Russia didn't have czars (tsars), they got rid of them! So is Obama a socialist even though he has a bunch of Czars (just like Dubya had)? No matter. Facts have not made much difference in this, America's Crazy Time. Google it.

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