Free Republic

The Framers of the Constitution knew that the document founding our democracy must be the anchor of liberty and the blueprint for its preservation. Wisely, they provided a balance of powers to ensure that no individual and no single arm of government could ever wield unchecked authority against the American people. Nearly 250 years later, these critical lines of separation are being obscured by a new class of federal officials. A few of them have formal titles, but most are simply known as "czars." They hold unknown levels of power over broad swaths of policy. Under the Obama administration, we...

WASHINGTON -- The uproar over former White House adviser Van Jones has heightened attention on the ranks of nonconfirmed policy "czars" within the Obama administration. The use of special White House advisers and the czar moniker itself go back decades, but government watchers say President Barack Obama has appointed an unusual number of senior coordinators, especially for a president so early in his administration. They have responsibilities ranging from health care and climate change to Afghanistan and the auto sector. Some Republicans, fanned by conservative commentators' warnings that these advisers constitute a shadow government, have seized on the czar issue...

The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Harvard professor Cass Sunstein as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management.

Can anyone tell me if President Bush had any Czars in his administration? Specifically a Czar to oversee the war in Iraq? I didn't think he did, but a liberal friend of mine insisted that he did.

Hmm. I wonder which of the many glorious aspects of Mother Gaia it was that first attracted President Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones to the environmental movement. Was it, perhaps, his love of fluffy bunnies - especially those ones with the long floppy ears and the sweet pink noses? Was it the sight of the mighty redwoods in Northern California or the sea otters frolicking amid the kelp off Big Sur or the manatees basking so cutely amid the shimmering propellors of the Everglades?