Just what we need -- another Czar!

This time, we're getting an Internet Czar.

Adds Glenn Reynolds,

Several readers point out that, once again, Obama is putting power into the hands of an appointed official who is not subject to Senate confirmation.

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Or is the president simply creating power out of thin air? I share the concern of Glenn's readers about "putting power into the hands of an appointed official who is not subject to Senate confirmation," but what power? Where does such power come from?

Have we reached a point where the idea of constitutionally enumerated and limited powers has become a fiction?

I guess they don't call them czars for nothing. While no one seems to know exactly how many czars there are, President Obama is so in love with czarism that he is being called a "Monarchist." Even before he took office, he made it clear that he was going to dramatically increase the nation's czar supply:

...Mr. Obama will name former Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner as a White House energy czar, along with other officials to head the Energy Department and EPA. Over the weekend, he announced New York City housing commissioner Shaun Donovan as his secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and he is also planning to name an urban-affairs czar to work out of the White House, likely Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion.

He has already named an economic czar, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker, to look at big-picture economic issues -- while he also has a Council of Economic Advisers, a National Economic Council and a large Treasury Department right next door.

He has made former Sen. Tom Daschle a health czar of sorts, in addition to making him secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Congress came close to creating a car czar, and even though that legislation died, the idea could return. And public interest groups are lobbying for a consumer czar.

So far, czarism in the United States has been a failure, which is good.

"There've been so many czars over last 50 years, and they've all been failures," said Paul Light, an expert on government at New York University. "Nobody takes them seriously anymore." He pointed to officials placed in charge of homeland security and drug policy.

The problem is that "czars" are meant to be all-powerful people who can rise above the problems that plague the federal agencies, he said, but in the end, they can't. "We only create them because departments don't work or don't talk to each other," Mr. Light said, adding that creation of a White House post doesn't usually change that. "It's a symbolic gesture of the priority assigned to an issue, and I emphasize the word symbolic. When in doubt, create a czar."

I'd hate to think that all this symbolic power might become the real thing, because that would violate the spirit of that quaint little phrase that goes "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States."

(Wouldn't want to have to overthrow the Czars or anything....)