CZAR STRUCK….FROM FORBES
An Equal Shot
Czar-Struck
Michael Maiello, 10.26.09, 12:01 AM ET
Soon after being elected president of the United States, Barack Obama and his cadre of hand-selected experts and advisers began to infiltrate the federal government to an alarming degree. In a series of deft maneuvers cloaked in publicity, Obama seemed to suggest that elections have consequences: He appointed cabinet officials to help run government agencies and all manner of special advisers called “czars” as his public counsel on topics ranging from the economy to national security to energy.
The count varies (high seems to be 32) but Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat-ish, Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, actual Republican, Maine, of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committees, seem to think Obama has “at least 18” czars–and senators are concerned about it. Czars, you see, don’t have to be confirmed by the Senate; the president can simply pick whoever he wants to listen to. Of course, czars can’t make laws, which is why they don’t need the vetting. It’s up to Obama to take or leave the advice of his friends or colleagues.
The Senate is worried that the president is using all of these czars to circumvent congressional authority. In short, they think the executive branch is over-reaching. Yes, that’s right, the body of lawmakers that doesn’t think “Homeland Security and Government Affairs” is too broad a mandate for any one committee does think the president is over-reaching by choosing who he thinks will be able to answer questions about the myriad of responsibilities that ultimately fall on the guy with the password to the presidential BlackBerry.
These senators have succumbed to “czaranoia”–the insane belief that making Larry Summers your economic adviser will somehow grant you extra-constitutional powers. For his part, Obama suffers from Seasonal Defective Disorder, which is the insane belief that Larry Summers–who kind of caused the financial mess in the first place–is the guy to help get Citigroup and Bank of America off the government dole.
But within that joke lies the reason czars are OK, no matter how the president uses them and no matter what party they’re from–and yes, all modern presidents have had czars: These are public advisers. If I don’t think Summers should be anywhere near government, that’s just too bad. I’m not the president. But at least I know that Summers has the president’s ear. At least I can criticize the president for choosing Summers. I can also criticize Summers. The public can form an opinion about him, and if that opinion hurts Obama’s cause, Summers shall turn into fall. Who needs Congress here?
The alternative is that Obama, or any president, will seek advice from whoever he wants anyway, and absent the public czar system, we won’t know who it is. Might be Ralph Nader, might be Henry Kissinger. Nobody will know. It will turn something public and transparent into something utterly suspicious-looking, and conspiracy theorists will go off the deep end.
Then The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, smelling money, will write his own version of All The King’s Men. Don’t you all see that no good can come of this anti-czar hysteria? And you know what happened last time people got up in arms about Czars? That’s right, The Soviet Union. (Yes, I went there. But I’m kidding.)
The last administration had a National Energy Policy Development Group to advise it on its energy policies. It was made up of … well, we don’t really know, despite eight years of Freedom of Information Act requests. This has led to all manners of speculation about who was on the task force, what they told the president and even if those meetings were in any way related to the invasion of Iraq a few years later.
All we know is that around the time of those Task Force meetings, Vice President Dick Cheney met with executives from BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. What that means depends on what you want it to mean. Even a controversial czar would have been better from a transparency standpoint.
Controversial czars have hurt Obama a bit. Van Jones, the former “green energy” czar, had apparently made some radical statements that some say mean he should never be able to put his formidable mind to the public good ever again. Don’t worry, he was driven from office and the world is safe again.
Steve Rattner, the former Lazard banker and private equity guy only got to be “car czar” for a little while, because he’s being investigated for pay-to-play pension issues. But he’s gone too, so we don’t have to worry about having a private equity turnaround guy helping Obama deal with GM and Chrysler. Now that I think of it, that might really make people at Chrysler feel better.
It’s possible a Senate vetting might have saved Obama the hassle of having to accept those resignation letters, but is C-SPAN really so hard up for programming that we need czar confirmation hearings? Czary, but I can do without.
Michael Maiello is editor of Markets and Intelligent Investing at Forbes. An Equal Shot, his weekly column, runs Mondays.
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