Obama's Czars, 'Hand Puppets,' and 'Evil Despots,' Oh My!

June 8th, 2009 3:49 PM

“Evil despots.”

 

Neil Cavuto thinks Obama’s czars should be labeled what they really are: “evil despots accountable to no one.”

 

The host of “Cavuto on FOX” heaped this and other insults onto Obama’s czars during a Jun. 6 panel discussion. The brazen comments came as the panel took turns criticizing Obama’s multitude of czars.

 

Since Obama took office in January, he has created new positions to enforce his agenda. A pay czar, regulatory czar, border czar, cyber czar, and Great Lakes czar are among the multitude of appointed loyalists, numbering more than 20 by some accounts.

 

Obama’s newest addition, the Great Lakes czar, bears responsibility for cleaning up the Great Lakes. As Cavuto pointed out, “You hit lunacy when you have a Great Lakes czar, and I’m thinking, what is a Great  Lakes czar gonna do?” Pictures of a fisherman and suckerfish appeared on the screen to illustrate Cavuto’s claim, “We got a czar overseeing suckerfish, and we’re the suckers paying for it.”

 

Concerned about the czars overreaching their power, Cavuto asked how easy it would be for the pay czar to expand his role from monitoring only executive pay of bailed out companies to monitoring pay of all executives. He asked, “If we change the name of the ‘czar’ to something that resonated more true to what they are, let’s say ‘evil despots accountable to no one’… don’t you think people at home would go  ‘what the hell!? We’ve got 15 despots that are evil, and they not answering to anyone!”

 

Agreeing with Cavuto, Wstreet's Charles Payne suggested the czars be called “15 hand puppets accountable to the hand.” Payne was concerned that Obama wanting to reduce the wage gap by “pushing the top down.” “What I worry about is that they’re gonna get it done, through threats, intimidation, new rules, new regulations and new taxes,” he said, referring to the czars.

 

Gary Kaltbaum of GaryK.com worried that the czars’ power to interfere with the market will have harmful effects. “Where is this going to end?” he fervently asked, “And obviously, it’s not going to end. This is all about putting too much power in too few hands.”

 

Adam Lashinky, senior writer of Fortune Magazine, noted that the czars are doing the work of cabinet members. “There’s ample power in the Treasury Department and the Energy Department, etcetera to get these things done,” he insisted, “and I don’t think there should be a commissar, which is really what this is. It’s not an encouraging thing.”

 

Cavuto also pointed out that Obama never once mentioned the word “czar” during his campaign, and now he has 15 of them. “We must stress these czars are answerable only to the big guy – the president … I don’t think people envisioned this.”