Too Many Czars and Not Enough Indians

What is it with all the profusion of czars these days? We started off with a Drug Czar, which rather made sense when Bush the elder created the position since the Tsar (Russians pronounce-and spell-it Tsar) was not known for being soft on crime (or anything else) and the notion was that the Drug Czar would have at drugs like Cossacks at the Jews of Gomel in 1906 (never, ever speak treasonous words like “the poor ain`t so bad” or “wouldn’t it be nice if we could vote”), but what of all the newly minted czars? How many czars does a nation need, anyway?

---

We have Car Czars, Cyber Czars, Terrorism Czars, Urban Czars, Energy Czars; it won’t be long before we have a Toenail Fungus Czar the way we are going! You could perform a Rockettes show with all the czars dancing around. The problem is we have too many czars; how many czars can you stuff in a Fiat, after all. You can’t tell them apart without a scorecard. Perhaps we should make them wear numbers, like baseball players… This is classic beaurocratic thinking. For decades we have had multiculturalism preached to us, yet all we get are czars, czars, czars. How about a kaiser, or a kagan? (There was a kagan in a cavern, excavating for a mine…) Perhaps we should have a regular old caesar, or a pharaoh, or an inca? How about a fuehrer? There is plenty of despotry to go around, and I’m sure if we try hard we could find some equally tyrannical figure to lead one of Obama`s newest acquisitions. Its not really appropriate, either, since the scariest despots were men with titles like Chairman or President. Guys running communist parties made Ivan the Terrible look like an amateur, after all. Why the antiquated imagery when the chairman is so much more efficient? Actually, I suppose it`s very appropriate; efficiency isn’t the goal after all. Why not use the title of a guy whose position was downsized early in the 20th century? These regulatory positions are fitting, since the goal is to return the objects of regulation back in the 19th century or even earlier. In fact, why don’t we go even further by reinstituting Merchantilism as a modern economic system? Obama wants to reinstitute Marxism, or failing that Fascism, yet he wants a czar in every garage, so why stop our retrograde motion with quaint 20th century concepts? A revival of Merchantilism would make perfect sense, given the economic models the Administration is employing; at least there was a role from private individuals, serving the Czar, or whatever other royalty that may have sat enthroned (and by that I do not mean on the privy, although perhaps Obama could empanel a privy council-a crap czar, if you will-to oversee American toilets lest they use to much water and limit toilet paper to one square per customer as advocated by the beauteous but pungent Sheryl Crow). Forward to the Past! With all these czars running around, we’ll return America to the 17th century in no time! Environmental regulations, government control of the auto industry, cap and trade policies along with oil drilling bans mean we will soon be reseeding the prairie grasses and putting the buffalo back on the plains. We can all live like the noble savage, sleeping in skin teepees and smoking peyote in our peace pipes (not tobacco, though; that will still be strictly regulated). We can then change the title of our overlords from czars to chiefs, and then Obama`s work will be finished. A Car Czar is a great start on the road to the past. That’s what I call building a bridge to the 17th century!