Why should anyone care if Obama appoints a lot of "czars" or not? I'm not sure what the foul is here. If it's that they're "unaccountable", this isn't true, as they're accountable to Obama, and aside from confirmations, that's all that cabinet secretaries are. If it's that they're not Senate-confirmed, it's worth noting that few countries require executives to confirm their cabinet. I know Britain and France don't, and yet they survive.
I don't even see the angle for an effective attack
here. There are two possibilities for who is driving this unusually insipid attack strategy:
- Right-wing senators who are angry at having their bailiwicks upended
- The usual FoxNews editorial strategy of scaring the bejesus out of the base, so that they'll quiveringly tune into the teevee nightly about stories about the evil shadow government that Barack Obama is obviously constructing
Unsurprisingly, I tend to go with option number two. Fox could give a damn about what makes Jim Inhofe cry. But I do think that we need to rethink the whole "advise and consent" idea at some point. I'm sure that the Senate has all sorts of ideas as to what makes an ideal Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Aviation, but they needn't bore the rest of us with them.
