The Tin-Star Title for the Too-Tough Job - War Czar

[maddezmom]

By MARK LEIBOVICH
Published: May 20, 2007
Washington

IN 19th-century Russia, Czar Nicolas I commissioned an official national anthem known as “God Save the Czar.”

In 21st-century Washington, the anthem would be more suitably titled “God Help the Czar.”

It’s not good to be the czar, not here, not now. The czars dwell in bureaucratic jumble, not palatial privilege. Indeed, you know it has gotten messy, the problem so immense — and the managers so desperate — that the only solution lies with something as fundamentally undemocratic as the appointment of a czar.

Newest to the pantheon is Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute of the Army, named this week to oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — the so-called war czar — after several others declined the job. General Lute joins a cast of czars proliferating at all levels of government: Katrina-relief czars, intelligence czars, health care czars, energy czars, AIDS czars and economic czars. The state of Utah even had a “porn czar” to investigate indecency complaints (“I swear, I’m only looking at these pictures because I’m the porn czar!”). The Exalted One was eventually sacked in a budget reduction.

They sweep into “newly created positions” — czar jobs are often hailed as “newly created positions” and imbued with “unprecedented authority” to “cut through the bureaucracy” and “get things done.” All of which usually ensures that their authority will be undercut at every turn, that they will be entangled in bureaucracy and get very few “things” done.

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/weekinreview/20leibovich.html?ref=washington

[sam sarrha]

1. and Praise be to gOD that they will get few things done....!!! if *__ achieves 10% of his goals we

are ALL done for, he will suceed in dragging us all down to Hell... and the world will end

[rodeodance]

2. another layer of bureaucracy