Why does Obama need so many czars? Looking past the chain of command

June 2, 11:12 AMHouston Libertarian ExaminerChuck Ringoringo

Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Houston Libertarian Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Recently, U.S. Senator and former Republican Presidential nominee John McCain tweeted the following, "Obama has more czars than the Romanovs - who ruled Russia for 3 centuries. Romanovs 18, cyberczar makes 20." 

With the proliferation of czars (or tsars, depending on how you like to spell it) within the Obama White House, one would have to ask himself: why so many?  Does the country really need a TARP czar (Herb Allison), Gitmo czar (Daniel Fried), or even a God czar (Joshua DuBois) when the roles they are trying to fill are either taken by a Cabinet position or just downright superfluous?

So what are the problems with having so many czars?  For starters, as many have pointed out, it obfuscates the chain of command.  Consider Kathleen Sebelius, who as head of Health and Human Services may end up getting usurped by Nancy-Ann DeParle, Obama's health care czar.  Actually, according to Politico,

"White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the issue is big enough to make room for many individuals, but DeParle is the lead player. 

In other words, DeParle does not only have the potential to usurp the head of a government agency, she has the President's blessing to do so.  Of course, this isn't the only example as the czars influence affect the inner workings of agencies ranging from HUD to the Pentagon. 

Naturally, the argument for these czars is accountability for the particular issue at hand and interagency co-operation; however, good team management dictates that, from the top-down, issue handling goes from the general to the specific.  And, with Obama, it's in reverse -- lending the situation to micromanagement, empire-building, and in-fighting. 

Good team management also exemplifies attributes  of good object-oriented software design, where objects pass information from one to another through a Singleton; a layman's definition of this would be President Truman's saying, "The buck stops here."  It would be in Mr. Obama's best interest to observe this practice instead of re-inventing the wheel.

Unfortunately (and perhaps this is just the cynicism showing), it's highly unlikely Mr. Obama will break from this design flaw in his org chart, and it won't be for the usual "stay the course" rationale.  Rather, Mr. Obama would more than likely keep to his current model so that he has more time to take the First Lady for some romantic weekend getaway in Chicago or to see a Broadway show. 

It's understandable that the President needs to spend time with his family (after all, he's human); yet, it's rather callous of a sitting President to be taking vacation time off when so many emergencies abound affecting so many of his constituents.  Previous presidents have been lambasted by the press for spending time in Kennebunkport during a crisis (Bush I during the recession comes to mind), and if the President were to consider himself presidential, he would keep that in mind.

Then again, perhaps Senator Byrd was on to something with his February 23, 2009 memo to the President regarding these appointments. 

Byrd quoted from a House study following Watergate regarding Nixon appointees, which stated:

"Whatever their other duties and roles, each of these individuals, as White House personnel, held a high degree of political immunity from accounting for their activities before Congressional Committees.  The shadow of executive privilege beclouded normal accountability arrangements." 

Maybe, Senator Byrd makes a salient point about the temptation of the Obama administration to make government less transparent despite the promises he made on the campaign trail.  Or, it could just be cronyism, plain and simple -- especially when factoring in the number of Obama appointees who have had to turn away nominations to high-ranking positions after discovering the person in question had personal tax issues. 

Then, there's always the possibility that it could be a combination of the above.

Whatever the reasoning behind his decision to be so deferential, the purported coolness that Mr. Obama showed on the campaign trail is appearing to turn into indifference.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked, during the Democratic primary, if Obama could answer a ringing phone at 3 a.m. 

Sadly, it's starting to look like Mr. Obama won't even answer it at 3 in the afternoon.