Just for the record, and so you can point this out yourself when someone starts shouting about it, there are hardly any "Czars," and what "Czars" there are are mostly powerless and uncontroversial.

First: it is an obvious point, but there is no such thing as a "Czar," officially. The term is so vague that one could call almost any administration appointee a "Czar." In fact, it is so easy and misleading to generate controversy by just printing a catch-all list of federal government appointees with the ones you want to cause trouble about labeled "Czars" that we are not at all shocked that Politico did so.

Almost as if they had some sort of shame, they belatedly added bold and italics to those "Czars" who were confirmed or whose positions were created by Congress, thus making them not actually "Czars." (If you hold a long-established Cabinet position and have been confirmed by the US Senate only an outright propagandist determined to create controversy without any regard for honesty would call you a "Czar." Hello, Politico Staff! Nice list!)

In fact, on that Politico list there are only 15 people who weren't confirmed by the Senate and who hold positions created by the Obama administration. And they are all harmless.

But this list, this Pulitzer-worthy piece of investigative and made-up journalism, is decidedly incomplete. Why, the commenters at Free Republic came up with a dozen more "Czars" all on their own! Surely we can add more names to the list!

What about:

  • Other Countries Czar: Hillary Clinton
  • War Czar: Robert Gates
  • Press Czar: Robert Gibbs
  • Swear Czar: Rahm Emanuel
  • Death Panel Czar: Zeke Emanuel
  • Boom Boom Czar: Will.i.am
  • Train Czar: Joe Biden
  • Kill Whitey Czar: Michelle Obama
  • Dog Czar: Bo

It's fun and easy to both take your cues from and feed the right-wing noise machine!