Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [87]
Where O’Reilly favored international financiers, Beck developed a passion for government bureaucrats. Specifically, Beck is into czars. Czar is not an official title. It’s media shorthand for an appointed official in the executive branch with a specific purview of responsibility. Unlike cabinet positions, Congressional approval is not generally required for such appointments. Woodrow Wilson had an “industry czar.” FDR had a “food czar,” a “manpower czar,” a “synthetic rubber czar,” and several others. Richard Nixon had a “drug czar” and an “energy czar.” George W. Bush, who was slightly czar-struck, had about thirty-six czars depending on how you count, including a “faith-based czar,” a “bioethics czar,” and a pair of “AIDS czars.” (One was a “global AIDS czar”; the other was just a regular “AIDS czar.”) Bush also appointed an “abstinence czar” and a “birth control czar,” which might have led to a drunken czar-fight in the State Dining Room were it not for the birth control czar’s opposition to contraceptives.20
Barack Obama retained many of Bush’s czar positions (not the abstinence czar) and appointed a few of his own. Glenn Beck at one point counted thirty-two czars in the Obama administration.21 Republicans, who had voiced no opposition to Bush’s czars, complained bitterly about Obama’s, perhaps because they had no opportunity to filibuster them as they have done to almost every nominee who requires congressional approval. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) called the appointments “antidemocratic.” Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said that they “undermine the constitution.”bv22 Former Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) objected to the term czar because it’s too Russian and helpfully suggested alternatives: “big boss, el jefe, head honcho, the big cheese . . . chief cook and bottle washer.”23
The chief cook and bottle washer of the czar scare was Glenn Beck. Beck did not like those czars, not one bit. “This collection of these czars, these are evil people. These are wicked,” he said. Exploiting concerns that the appointment of czars sidestepped constitutional checks and balances, Beck contrived an elaborate conspiracy theory that placed the czars at the center of the “shadow government,” imbuing them with amazing powers of bureaucratic administration:
A shadow government is giving the Obama administration unprecedented power with virtually no oversight . . . They don’t need to be confirmed by the Senate; they rarely go before committees; they can claim “executive privilege” when asked to testify, and they’re accountable to no one but the president himself.24
But who are these wicked czars? In a short series called “Know! Your! Czars!” Beck introduced them one by one:
• John Holdren, science “czar”—proposed “compulsory sterilization” and forced abortions to control population
• Cass Sunstein, regulatory “czar”—proposed bans on hunting and eating meat and proposed that your dog to be allowed to have an attorney in court.
• Carol Browner, global warming “czar”—was part of Socialist International, a group for “global governance.”
• Ezekiel Emmanuel, health care adviser—proponent of the Complete Lives System, which puts values on lives based mostly by age.25
Angry Black Men
But the most wicked czar of them all, the czariest czar in the history of czars,