Cross-posted from Blue Moose Democrat.

Reading up on Van Jones last night, I said to myself, "I need to write a post on right-wing outrage about Obama's `czars.'" I guess great (fairly decent?) minds think alike; today's Center for American Progress "Progress Report" e-mail was titled "Crazy Czar Conspiracies." I dug up many of the links and facts in this post myself, but I also owe a major hat tip to Think Progress.

Right-wing talking heads like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Lou Dobbs have decided that any presidential advisor not approved by the Senate is an unconstitutional "czar" with too much power. Unfortunately, their outrage is filled with lies (many of the "czars" they complain about WERE confirmed by the Senate), hypocrisy (Bush had even more "czars" than Obama), and bad policy (what's wrong with the President having an advisor on violence against women?). First things first. What is a czar? According to Wikipedia,

The title `czar' is an informal term for certain high-level officials who direct or oversee federal operations on a given topic or who coordinate policies between different departments on a given topic... In the United States, the term czar has been used by the media to refer to appointed executive branch officials since at least the early 1940s... Since then, a number of ad hoc, temporary as well as permanent United States Executive Branch positions have been established that have been referred to in this manner. For example, President Richard Nixon created two offices whose heads became known as "czars" in the popular press: drug czar in 1971, and energy czar in 1973.

According to this Wikipedia article, Barack Obama has 32 "czars," three less than did Repub George W. Bush. The right-wing noise machine, which to my memory was nowhere to be found when Bush appointed a swine-flu czar, is outraged that a Democratic president would dare assume to have the same rights as a Repub president.  Beck even lied about these numbers, claiming in June that"Other presidents have also named czars, but no one can hold a candle to President Obama who has named 16 czars so far!"

After the resignation of Jones, the "White House Council on Environmental Quality Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation,"Hannity declared, "We got rid of one [czar], and my job starting tomorrow night is to get rid of every other one. I promise you that!" According to Neil Cavuto, these czars - who actually have titles like White House Adviser on Violence Against Women, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, and Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for International Affairs - are "evil despots accountable to no one." That's right - if the President wants someone to inform him about violence against women but does not subject her to a lengthy and unnecessarily brutal vetting process, than she clearly must be described with the same word that Bush applied to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il.

It gets even better below the jump.

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Talk to any political organizer and they'll tell you the hardest part about pulling off a successful protest rally is building a big enough crowd for the press to show up and cover the festivities. As tax day approaches, conservatives planning anti-Obama "tea party" demonstrations across the country have found a way around this once-daunting organizer's dilemma: Fox News.

That's right. Despite repeatedly claiming its coverage is "fair and balanced," despite its attacks on anyone who dares claim or imply the cable outlet tilts to the right, despite encouraging viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," Fox News has frequently aired segments imploring its audience to get involved with tea-party protests across the country -- protests the "news" network has described as mainly a response to President Obama's economic policies.

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Republicans are desperate.  You would be too if the economic theory you'd imposed on the country had just pulled a Hindenburg.  Bush and Paulsen are doubling down and asking for an "Authorization for Use of Financial Force" - a no oversight, $700 billion dollar bailout that we'd call nationalization if it happened anywhere South of the Rio Grande or East of NYC.  Patrick Ruffini is begging the Congressional GOP Caucus to demagogue on the issue, economy be damned. And John McCain is asking Americans to suspend any remaining disbelief and imagine him as a populist.

My personal favorite new tactic of desperation is the blame the victims approach that Neil Cavuto and Pat Buchanan debuted on Faux News and MSNBC, respectively. Try and stay with me, but apparently the economy is in meltdown because middle-income Americans (or "minorities and risky folks" according to Mr. Cavuto) had the audacity to apply for and receive loans.

What happened exactly?  Did millions of people walk into banks with guns and demand to be approved for risky mortgages.  Then, did they storm Wall Street and force the titans of finance to take advantage of John McCain's banking deregulation to re-package these mortgages into securities that are falling faster than Bush's approval ratings post-Katrina?

Watch Cavuto below:

And, Pat (skip to the 5:15 mark):

It is preposterous and offensive to blame this crisis on hard working Americans who broke no laws and were only trying to do exactly what they're supposed to - buy homes.  Banks, lenders and financial institutions of all stripes made a series of exceptionally bad decisions, decisions made possible by a conservative economic philosophy that condones epic failures in regulation and oversight.  The blame lies with John McCain and his conservative Republican allies in Congress, who ended financial regulation as we knew it, and with George Bush, who, in shocking news, was asleep at the wheel.

Blaming consumers is the "Saddam planned 9/11" of economic excuse-making and we have to push back against it.

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