There is a very active Wikipedia article which lists " U.S. Executive Branch Czars." The article is flagged as follows:
[This article may contain excessive, poor or irrelevant examples. You can improve the article by adding more descriptive text and removing less pertinent examples.]
I have great faith in Wikipedia and its ability to sort itself out but like everything "open" on the net it can be shut down – or at least gummed up by anyone with an agenda, like Fox News.
All in all, there are 115 individuals listed on Wikipedia’s roster of czars. Of these there are 12 (Twelve, like the Apostles) that meet the generally accepted definition of a new "executive czar" under Obama (GW Bush had seven):
a) must be an appointment, not a Senate approved position,
b) positions within existing departments don’t count (e.g. like the State Department Special Envoys), and
c) appointments to pre-existing ‘czardoms’ don’t count (nothing pre-existing can be included).
So far Obama has appointed twelve new "czars" (using my rules). Here they are. Since we can rename them however we choose, below I tweaked the already tweaked media names on the Wikipedia site to make them even cuter.
Car Czar
Domestic Violence Czar [?]
Big Picture Economic Czar
Energy or Climate or Global Warming Czar
Great Lakes Czar [?]
Green-Jobs Czar
Health Care Czar
Information (as in Technology, St*p*d!) Czar
Iran Czar
Urban Affairs Czar
Weapons Czar
Weapons Non-Proliferation Czar
Of course, none of these actually has the title "czar" and for the most part they are point persons, crisis coordinators, advisors, or what we used to call ‘go-fers.’ Except for Bush 33; then they were called Special Interests, Titans of Industry, Contractors, or All of These Rolled into One (Cheney).
Several notes in the article recur quite frequently. For instance, several link to FOOTNOTE 22:
"Questions Raised Over Influence of Obama 'Czars'", "FOXNews.com" July 13, 2009. Retrieved on August 13, 2009.
Then there is the ominous FOOTNOTE 145:
Goler, Wendell (2009-07-16). "Obama's Army of Czars Raises Concerns About Executive Power". FOXNews.com.
Hmmm, and both articles were posted on the very same day.... It turns out both of them were written by the same person – Wendell Goler, only three days apart, for FOXNews!
Finally, there is FOOTNOTE 24:
Carpenter, Amanda (2009-06-15). "Hot Button". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
Amanda Carpenter works for "Townhall.com" and appears regularly on Fox TV.
It does seem to me we could get along without the czars for The Great Lakes and Domestic Violence. But, maybe the Great Lakes Czar is part of the Plan to Sterilize the Populace Using the Water Supply. And the Domestic Violence Czar may be the guy who breaks into your home to drag you off to the FEMA detention camp and force you to have a Flu Shot. I’ve been afraid of this scenario ever since Glenn Beck let us know about it on his TV show today. Thanks for all the hard work, Wendell, Amanda, Glenn and FOX. What would we do without you?
Auriandra
Wabasha MN