"Dancing With The Czars": Dems Mock GOP, Glenn Beck Over Czar Obsession

Over the past few days, I've written about the wildly outsized claims of czars in the Obama administration undermining the government. Republican Senators are sending letters and GOP House members are holding up posters and attempting to pass thoroughly baffling bills to prevent the Obama White House from appointing advisers.

These elected officials seem to be unaware of some basic facts. Many of the people they insist need to be confirmed by the Senate already have been confirmed. Many of the people they consider to be holding unprecedented appointments are merely filling well-established positions. In some cases, these lawmakers seem to have forgotten that they themselves passed laws that mandated the appointments. And in a few cases, they just select some established functionary at random -- like a State Department envoy or the Deputy Secretary of the Interior -- and call that guy a "czar" just for fun!

All of these fears and complaints are indicative of either a powerful desire to mislead or an advanced mental disease that hopefully Dr. Charles Boustany will be able to treat, with some sort of Louisiana voodoo poultice.

And of course, it's always worth pointing out that "czars" (the term itself being nothing more than a media shorthand standing in for long government titles and/or complex portfolios) have been a fact of life in American politics since the Nixon administration. And it's equally worth pointing out that the Bush administration itself deployed a veritable flotilla of czars.

The latter point is being made abundantly clear in a new Democratic National Committee ad entitled "Dancing With The Czars," which employs the services of Fox News's own Glenn Beck to elucidate some of the 47 Bush czars that walked the face of the earth before the Obama administration came to the White House.

"With apologies to Tom DeLay, and despite the railing you're hearing from the Republican caucus room and Fox News, the GOP has been 'dancing with czars' for a very long time. The unmitigated hypocrisy of these attacks not only speaks to the credibility of this manufactured controversy, but to the inability of the Republican party to say no to the marching orders doled out by Glenn Beck and the far right's noise machine," said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan.

[WATCH]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to [e-mail] -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Comments

[PhantomDuck]

02:02 PM on 09/22/2009

The fact that Glenn Beck has all your panties in a wad proves how effective he is.

Is he crazy? Probably... like a fox. (No pun intended).

[GeologyRocks]

01:36 PM on 09/19/2009

The number of czars in the Obama administration or the place of his birth is less important than what he has been up to since his birth. President Obama, without any thought about the impacts to the environment and the world around him, has selfishly breathed in oxygen, which the rest of us need for survival. If that wasn’t bad enough, without even offering us one single thank you, he has instead left in its place carbon dioxide, a substance known to contribute to global warming.

President Obama is not just trying to subvert America into a socialist/fascist/communist state, he is also trying to cripple the world’s environment in such a way that most of the landmasses of our planet will become uninhabitable, with the exception of a few isolated areas where only gays, secularists, and illegal aliens will be allowed.

[Khirad]

09:46 PM on 09/19/2009

Fanned. great job!

[juhar]

09:32 PM on 09/17/2009

Excellent and informative video. This is the way to answer the craziness.

[insideoutgraphics]

08:06 PM on 09/17/2009

For those that back Beck, please take this test now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqgHGT8yXg

[RevBookburn]

09:19 PM on 09/17/2009

That is fantastic! The Beckies, teabaggers, religious right, and health insurance industry stooges flunked this for sure!

[Tugar]

07:52 PM on 09/17/2009

GREAT......

Glenn Beck is totally forgetting how many CZARS the Bush Administration had on its payroll ! OH, I'M JUST WAITING FOR OLD GLENN TO GET SOME OF HIS NONSENSE BACK !

[blico]

06:23 AM on 09/18/2009

He has mentioned them. Presidents since FDR have had Czars.
Perhaps you will list for us all the Bush Czars that were removed because of unvetted pasts, extremely radical philosophies or being communists?

[Khirad]

09:54 PM on 09/19/2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_%27czars%27

Abstinence czar counts just in its job title. And Bush got rid of Rumsfeld and doin' a great job Brownie reluctantly, and never heard much outrage from the "moral" right over snort and sex Department of the Interior of the Bush Admin.

Please, we had so much bigger fish to fry rather than being bottomfeeders from a failed party obsessing over such small appointments. You'r just desperate and Obama is like, fine, wasn't that big of a deal, come up with your next manufactured outrage...

[bloodyhands]

07:36 PM on 09/17/2009

Weak

[stdomsgirl]

07:18 PM on 09/17/2009

C Street ~ C Street members are they the chorus line for the dancing czars?

[Dbos]

11:22 AM on 09/18/2009

lol

[SharpDressedMan]

07:07 PM on 09/17/2009

5PM - P2+ (25-54) (35-64)
Aug 24 M Glenn Beck - 2,810,000 viewers (776,000) (1,327,000)
Sep 16 W Glenn Beck - 3,909,000 viewers (624,000) (1,195,000)

from August 24 to September 16, Beck's total number of viewers increased by 1,099,000. During the same interval, the number of viewers in the (25-54) and (35-64) age groups dropped. Those two age groups are what sponsors want the most. Beck lost 152,000 viewers in the (25-54) group and 132,000 in the (35-64) age group.

The increase in the P2 or the total number of viewers and the decrease in the premium age groups means the new viewers are youngsters or elders with low purchasing power. This is one of the reasons why Beck's income from sponsors dropped 50%.

62 corporate sponsors left Beck. The boycott is working. When will Beck apologize and give in?

[eden4barack08]

07:39 PM on 09/17/2009

The answer to that I'm afraid is NEVER, since Murdoch doesn't really care about making money on just that one show. There's a bigger chance that Beck's mental illness will catch up on him in breakdown mode right smack in the middle of a show, and that he'll be carried out in a strait jacket screaming racial slurs, than there is of Murdoch releasing him, and/or his apology.

[SharpDressedMan]

08:36 PM on 09/17/2009

You could be right. Then again, Murdoch is up in age and won't live forever. One hope is his kids aren't as hostile as their father against our country and its government.

It's hard to say exactly what will happen but I am afraid it will get worse before it gets better.

[Trustandalwaysverify]

07:02 PM on 09/17/2009

I read a lot of criticism and derrogatory terms given here to conservatives... I have a question.....

If liberals are such smart, reasonable and logical thinkers as you say they are...... and if liberals control the presidency and both houses of congress.... Can you tell me why in the world, a talk show host with ADHD, who suppossedly does not deal with facts, has made liberals back up from their position?

Van Jones resigned.

Yosi Sargent demoted.

Acorn defunded.

mmmmm maybe the conservatives are not the ones who need to wise up.......

[kiwi4Obama]

07:17 PM on 09/17/2009

beck, his tactics, his theories, his entertainment....this is the future of conservative political dialogue & thought? These are the themes & positions that will get you back into the Whitehouse?

I think the right needs comfort after 8 years of W and rejection by the American people...within the echo chamber (fox, talk radio) their world view is reinforced to the point that critcal questioning or common sense is left at the door. Sorry you are not the majority, just a loud segment of the political landscape, fun to watch and often mind blowing.

I will give you Acorn....lack of management and sheer stupidity by these individuals cannot be defended.

[ferguskhan]

09:16 PM on 09/17/2009

Hmmm, damn good question. I'm thinking it's because they're spineless nitwits who couldn't agree on the color of poop and who would run from a fight with a blind, toothless, parapalegic hampster.

[cbat]

07:00 PM on 09/17/2009

Oh snap, way to push back.

[SharpDressedMan]

06:52 PM on 09/17/2009

Ronald Reagan had czars. Surely the rightwingnuts wouldn't dare blaspheme St. Ronnie's image.

[FeloniusMonk]

06:55 PM on 09/17/2009

Just like Ronny was a B actor, his were B - czars.

[Dbos]

11:23 AM on 09/18/2009

Too funny

[kiwi4Obama]

07:00 PM on 09/17/2009

highly unlikely, you see Republican administrations always do a "hecka of a job". They have such a great track record with invasions, wire tapping, disaster recovery, running foreign based prisions, improving healthcare and so forth that bad or big Government really only occures when a Democrat is elected, of course the big issues are never addressed by the R's, hence the healthcare issue right now among others

[Counterglow]

06:51 PM on 09/17/2009

The real problem, of course, is that the media introduced the term "czar" to describe a person who was supposed to be responsible for a specific problem. Unfortunately, the ignoramuses freaking out over the title are so completely uneducated about government that they believe these people have the same kind of authority as an elected representative.

It's like me describing a good assistant my "vehicle to success". These !diots would be looking at her with open-mouthed, dull-eyed stares and complaining that "She ain't no ve-hickle, 'cause she ain't got no wheels."

[HungryJoe]

06:49 PM on 09/17/2009

If you're looking for a good summary - it's from Time, repubs will cry 'libnut propaganda' but I'd like to see a good rebuttal to it - on Glenn Beck you should check this out.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1924348,00.html

Great article. HP should really have a story + link to it!

Chowder folks,
A

[ilse]

06:03 PM on 09/17/2009

Rightwing love to bring up president Obamas czars on aol all the time. Glad to see democrats are fighting back.

[Jakpro]

06:14 PM on 09/17/2009

It would be a change for the DNC to accurately level their argument. Look at the DNC website. There were NOT 47 czars at any given time. There were a total of 47 different advisers/czars during the entire 8 year administration. These individuals did not work in the administration all at one time. They were appointed and then when one left another person replaced them.

The ads are inaccurate and it is hypocritical to use this bad information to make the case. The fact is that the current administration has more advisers than any other before it. There are cabinet positions that are responsible for the same things as these "czars", so why should they be appointed. It was wrong in EVERY administration from Nixon to Obama regardless of the party.

[SharpDressedMan]

06:23 PM on 09/17/2009

So what? It doesn't matter that 47 czars didn't work all the time but most did.

Your argument is invalid and reeks of hypocrisy. George W. Bush used czars, so many of them and no one of your ilk, no one from Fox complained until now.

It's all part of trying to bring President Obama's administration down. It won't work. A media baron employing addicts and nutcases won't subvert the will of the majority.

[SharpDressedMan]

06:25 PM on 09/17/2009

I see you were born yesterday. Welcome sockpuppet.

[SharpDressedMan]

05:53 PM on 09/17/2009

You mean Beck got it wrong again and his dittoheads are here defending him?