“War Czar” Simply the Administration's Way of Making The "Bush War” Permanent!

For years, conservatives have talked about the importance of “making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent.” With their recent call for a “War Czar,” they seem to have similar hopes about George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.

While it makes some kind of sense to have a “Drug Czar,” or a “Terrorism Czar,” because drugs and terrorism are insidious problems that will always be present at some level, war has always been a temporary response to a world crisis. A war is something that most of us expect to occur only as a last resort. If conducted well, a war should end as soon as a desired de-escalation of the crisis is achieved.

Naming a “War Czar” gives the psychological impact of permanence, in the same way that the “Drug Czar” and the so-called “War on Drugs” have been woven into the fabric of American society.

However, it makes about as much sense as naming a “Flood Relief Czar” during a flood, or a “Power Outage Czar" during a power outage!

If we really want to look for an insidious, long-term, problem requiring its own Czar, how about naming Patrick Fitzgerald as our nation's “Corruption Czar?”