"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
A Gold-Plated Title for a Tin Badge Job: Bush Appoints ?War Czar?
"Newest to the pantheon is Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute of the Army, named this week to oversee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ? the so-called war czar ? after several others declined the job. General Lute joins a cast of czars proliferating at all levels of government: Katrina-relief czars, intelligence czars, health care czars, energy czars, AIDS czars and economic czars. 'Whenever we have an intractable problem, we tend to dredge up a czar and they fail,' said the Clinton-era drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey (excepting himself from the failure provision). He praises General Lute as a 'spectacularly good appointment' and then pays him an even more trenchant compliment: 'He ain't no czar'." (NY Times)
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