President Obama seems to be "czar" slap happy.

While these czars don't need confirmation by the Senate, which is probably why it's so convenient to appoint them, the number he is busy getting dizzy stamping out is beginning to look like the reason for appointing presidential commissions: to give the appearance of doing something but actually accomplishing nothing.

As Frida Berrigan writes at Tomgram about the cyberzar:

"All will be better, promised the Blackberry President, once his cyberczar, or "cybersecurity coordinator" is selected. "I will personally select this official," he pledged. "I'll depend on this official in all matters related to cybersecurity and this official will have my full support and regular access to me as we confront these challenges."

"Keep in mind that the president is more than a little czar crazy, perhaps because the vague post of czar (of whatever) turns out not to require confirmation from a somewhat slow and balky Senate, even as it brings instant attention to some new aspect of his mega-agenda. He has already picked his Border Czar, Drug Czar, Counterterrorism Czar, Urban Affairs Czar, and Climate Czar, just to name a few. Foreign Policy counts a staggering 18 Obama czars in all. His still unnamed cyberczar will report to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

"Many of these new czars have offices within the White House from which they can (theoretically) oversee policy, coordinate among agencies, streamline decision-making, and give a particular issue or area added weight and prominence. In reality, such appointments historically tend to put yet another cook in a chaotic kitchen, while adding a new layer of bureaucracy to already jumbled layers of the same. As Paul Light, a government professor at New York University, told the Wall Street Journal, "There've been so many czars over the last 50 years, and they've all been failures. Nobody takes them seriously anymore."

"I feel better already! Except I do have a small question: How did the word "czar" morph from the title of a discredited autocrat half a world away to the description of a supposedly influential White House official? And why are all these czars jostling for power and order in a democratic government?

"Now we have a compensation czar, Kenneth Feinberg, as reported by the NYTimes: "The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation overseer with broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which have received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.

"Instead of deciding compensation levels himself, Mr. Geithner decided to appoint Mr. Feinberg, a well-known mediator whose last high-profile assignment was putting a financial value on the lives of victims of the 9/11 attack, to decide the pay for the top 25 executives at the American International Group, Citibank, Chrysler, Chrysler Credit, General Motors, GMAC and Bank of America."

According to David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy, Obama creates more czars than the Romanovs.

"It has finally happened. With yesterday's naming of Border Czar Alan Bersin, the Obama administration has by any reasonable reckoning passed the Romanov Dynasty in the production of czars. The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 with the ascension of Michael I through the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in 1917. During that time, they produced 18 czars. While it is harder to exactly count the number of Obama administration czars, with yesterday's appointment it seems fair to say it is now certainly in excess of 18.

"In addition to Bersin, we have energy czar Carol Browner, urban czar Adolfo Carrion, Jr., infotech czar Vivek Kundra, faith-based czar Joshua DuBois, health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, new TARP czar Herb Allison, stimulus accountability czar Earl Devaney, non-proliferation czar Gary Samore, terrorism czar John Brennan, regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, and Guantanamo closure czar Daniel Fried. We also have a host of special envoys that fall into the czar category including AfPak special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, special advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia Dennis Ross, Sudan special envoy J. Scott Gration and climate special envoy Todd Stern. That's 18. 

"This is a very conservative estimate, however. I will allow you to pick whom you would like out of the remaining candidates. For example you could count de facto car czar Steve Rattner even though the administration went out of its way to say they weren't going to have a car czar...  before he ultimately emerged as the car czar. You could count National Director of Intelligence Dennis Blair, often referred to as the intelligence czar, although you might not want to because his job has a different kind of status on the org chart. I'm not going to count Paul Volcker who was referred to as Obama's economic czar because Obama is not making much use of Volcker (at least according to reports). 

"The point is, disqualify who you may for your own list, there are still plenty of czars on the bench who will step up to make the comparison work in favor of Team Obama, if you think have lots and lots of czars is actually something in favor of Team Obama. (And to be fair: they didn't create all these slots...just a lot of them.)

"Personally, I think from a purely process standpoint all this czarism is a risky business that ends up producing bureaucratic bottlenecks, tensions and inefficiency when not managed extremely carefully.  For now we will give them the benefit of the doubt that they will manage it well. Though please, please guys, stop now that you are ahead, now that you are officially the most prolific czarist dynasty in history."