OBAMA’S CZAROMANIA
Sam Smith – According to David J. Rothkopf at Foreign Policy: “The Obama administration has by any reasonable reckoning passed the Romanov dynasty in the production of czars.” Obama now has at least 18 czars.
Even though Rothkopf rightly notes that “all this czarism is a risky business that ends up producing bureaucratic bottlenecks, tensions and inefficiency when not managed extremely carefully,” he – along with most other observers – misses an essential point.
The naming of czars is an run around the constitution. They are people not required to have senatorial confirmation. By assembling such a group, Obama has nearly and quietly diminished the role of the constitutionally required cabinet, as well as the Senate’s participation in same.
True, if you’re going to have an imperial presidency, we guess you have to expect a bunch of czars as well, but it’s one more quiet sign of the America’s declining interest in democracy.
Undernews is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who has covered Washington during all or part of one quarter of America’s presidencies and edited alternative journals since 1964. The Review has been on the web since 1995. See main page for full contents.
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