Were you aware of the use of the term "czar" before Obama took office

[PA Democrat]

I am amazed at the number of Glenn Beck fans literally foaming at the mouth over Obama's "czars".

From the video below (starting shortly after the 6 minute mark) you will see that none of the protesters were aware of the fact that "czars" are merely advisers with no real executive powers and that they are nothing new.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

I am interested in how long DUers have been aware of the use of the term "czar" to describe presidential advisers. I personally remember the term used during the Reagan administration.

DUers when did you first hear the term "czar" used to describe presidential advisers?

[Prophet 451]

1. My bad, misread it

I think I first head it when I first become aware of politics, sometime around Reagan's re-election.

[kestrel91316]

2. The "drug czar" dates back to the Reagan administration, IIRC.

[GCP]

18. Yes indeed

For those of us old enough to remember.
They had the first Drug Czar as far as I recall.

The poll needs updating.

[Louisiana1976]

43. I remember that, too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

30. yep. czars left and right

[hfojvt]

38. that's what I thought

but I went to school in the 1970s with a guy named Mincer who was sometimes called czar. Min-sir becomes Min-czar or czar. Especially since he was a 185 pound wrestler with muscles on top of his muscles.

[TxRider]

40. Try FDR...

[mamaleah]

44. That's whjat I thought too.

[phantom power]

3. Until this morning I thought it started with Reagan, but...

evidently Nixon coined the first "czar." Either way, it was a concept created and popularized by Republicans. Not that facts will stop the inevitable GOP poo-flinging hissy fit.

[phantom power]

7. come to think of it, it makes perfect sense that Republicans invented "czars"

being that the czars were royalists.

[TxRider]

41. Except they didn't, we did, under FDR

They were temporary policy managers, Nixon made it permanent with a drug Czar...

[Bolo Boffin]

10. "Not that facts will stop the inevitable GOP poo-flinging hissy fit." +1 n/t

[LSparkle]

25. I was thinking it was Nixon -- wasn't there a "poverty czar"? n/t

[RoccoR5955]

4. 1970

it was during the Nixon administration. He appointed an energy czar.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908276,00.html

[LSparkle]

26. Thank you! I thought it was a poverty czar but you're right it was energy n/t

[PA Democrat]

34. Thanks for that link!

So the term has been used for more than 35 years.

[RoccoR5955]

51. almost 40, but who's counting. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

5. The Gambler was a drug czar during the Reagan years

Alright--who was he?

[old guy]

9. Bennett

[Kingofalldems]

11. Winner

[Gidney N Cloyd]

13. Bill Bennet. First time I'd heard the expression. But I think he was Education Czar.

Vice President Bush I believe was Drug Czar. That's where all the Search and Seizure abuse started.

[Kingofalldems]

16. Bennett was Sec. of Education and then Drug Czar

I think.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

17. You're right. And he was appointed Drug Czar by Poppy Bush.

[redqueen]

6. During the Reagan administration. (nt)

[dana_b]

55. yes

wasn't there a "drug czar"?

[Riley18]

8. Bush Jr. had 45 czars and Reagan had 1 called a drug Czar

[BlooInBloo]

12. Yes. Everyone was. That's not their issue - it's just a made-up lie.

[PA Democrat]

14. Yeah, Beck and the Republicans know it's not true,

but Beck's stupid fans are either really good actors or never paid the slightest bit of attention to politics until now. Those people in that video were clueless, and I doubt they were the exception in that crowd.

[Warpy]

15. Nixon started the term and it made me CRINGE

but Nixon was a Republican so he could do little wrong until he authorized a bungled break in at Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate and a few journalists wouldn't let it go.

If you don't like that word, blame Republicans.

[LuvNewcastle]

20. It makes me feel the same way.

There's got to be a better title for them.

[Gormy Cuss]

23. It still makes me cringe and I wish that Democratic presidents didn't use it.

There must be another succinct word that could be used instead.

[Wetzelbill]

19. I heard of it when I was a little kid

and Reagan was president. I scarcely remember Carter, so I was probably a little too young to have been able to comprehend all that much about politics etc then. I was 5 when RR was elected and 6 when he took office.

[TCJ70]

21. I'm the first vote for "During Obama's Admin"...

...but I only started paying attention to politics about 5 years ago. So I have a smaller window of opportunity than most.

[drm604]

22. That video makes me sick.

:cry:
The pure ignorance on display there is mind boggling.

Part of me feels sorry for those people, and part of my is angry with them for letting their intellectual laziness hurt the rest of us.

He asks one woman why she objects to czars and she says that it's because she doesn't know who they answer to. If I was in his shoes I would have asked her if she's tried to find out the answer to that question - by going online, reading newspapers etc. She's basically saying that she's protesting her own ignorance. How F'd up is that?

[Critters2]

24. I worked in criminal justice during the CLinton admin, and heard about the Drug Czar

all the time.

[treestar]

27. Yep. Lame Right Wing Talking Points, vol. 74,300

[Blue_In_AK]

28. Bill Bennett, the drug czar, is the first one I remember.

Wasn't that George H.W. Bush who appointed him and called him that? What short memories these people have!

ed. Reading through the responses, I do remember now that it was Nixon who first coined the term.

It cracks me up that the right equates "Czars" with socialism or communism. No sense of history either.

[Captain Hilts]

29. THE first was William Simon, "Energy Tsar" under Nixon and Ford. nt

[TexasObserver]

31. Nixon used them in the 1970s

The ONLY reason it is being talked about is IT'S A RUSSIAN WORD.

For the Stupid Party aka GOP, that's the same as saying IT'S COMMONISSST!

And since they are so woefully uninformed, they don't even know that the GOP presidents have used CZARS repeatedly the past 50 years.

[Ineeda]

32. Raygun's administration

I've always disliked "czar", but what I really hate is the term "homeland" because it reeks of WWII Germany. I never heard this in reference to the US before 9/11.

[Obamanaut]

33. The term has been used by the media since the FDR administration.

<snip> The first White House issues czar was President Franklin Roosevelt’s “war production czar” Donald Nelson, who was joined by an economic czar, a manpower czar, a food czar and even a rubber czar. Subsequent presidents have either ditched the concept or had one or two czars for pet issues such as drug control or education initiatives.
<more>
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama-focuses-more-on-issue-czars-less-on-Cabinet_04_21-43315542.html

[Swamp Rat]

35. I first heard it used by Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was a commie. :)

[PA Democrat]

36. Yeah, he was one of those Hollywood commies. They're the worst kind!

[spanone]

37. you can educate but you can't fix stupid and these assholes revel in their stupidity

[TxRider]

39. ROFL, Try FDR, he stared the czars in the 1940's...

Nixon just made the first permanent Czar, they were temporary before that.

[HubertHeaver]

42. Baseball Czar, Judge Landis. The Russians weren't using

the term anymore so baseball writers appropriated it to describe the powers given to the good judge.

[salin]

45. Wasn't Bill Bennett some kind of czar for bushsr?

I seem to remember that he was sec of ed under reagan, but maybe drug czar (ironic if thought of as literal) for Bush sr.

[salin]

46. a 2005 item refers to his 1989 appointment as HW Bush's "Drug Czar"

http://www.campusprogress.org/tools/582/know-your-right-wing-speakers-william-bennett

It is my first recollection of the term being used to refer to a presidential appointee/position.

[asdjrocky]

47. It goes back to Nixon.

The term isn't even a real term, it's a press term that is short for whatever job the person actually has.

[Posteritatis]

48. I'm pretty sure there was one under either Harding or Wilson. (nt)

[Raine]

49. YES I remember Nixon's energy czar

it's nothing new.

[BoneDaddy]

50. Golly gee, one more thing to get outraged about

sorry I lost the 20 seconds to respond to this

[gleaner]

52. Yup ....

Use of the word to describe heads of functions for the government goes all the way back to Reagan. Then there were those guys in Russia who managed to trigger the revolution in 1917.

[Maru Kitteh]

53. I voted GW, but come to think of it I do remember "drug czars" before that.

I've found it a strange, but certainly not troublesome term to use. I did not rage in protest at the term when Dubya appointed czars, but rather at the boy king himself.

[DCKit]

54. The M$M has a huge advantage: Their audience doesn't fact-check.

If it's on the TeeVee, in a chain email, or spewed by Oxyrush, it may as well be engraved in stone.

Wingers: Willfully Ignorant and Proud of it.

[gatorboy]

56. Yep. The great Energy Czar from Doonesbury. 1974.

http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~library/special/simon/scrapbk.html