Newsweek Blames the Victim

Katie Connolly at Newsweek says it’s bad that folks on the “anti-czar” crusade are giant lying hypocrites—almost as bad as the fact that other people keep pointing this fact out to her!

Anyone who watches cable news surely knows that conservatives are getting themselves all hot and bothered over the Obama administration’s appointment of so-called czars. Today, the Democratic National Committee is going nuts in response. I’ve got more e-mails from them about this today than I care to count. This whole debate is descending into complete partisan hackery: GOP operatives are fanning ridiculous fears while Democrats are proffering inflated claims to counter them. That said, a lot of people do appear concerned by the existence of “czars,” so I think the issue merits a quick discussion. Of course, the points I’m about to list come with the caveat that a lack of accountability for public officials should always be of concern in a democracy. But these czars aren’t beyond the bounds of reproach, nor are they entirely apart from the democratic process—they’re accountable to the White House, which of course is elected. Some of them even needed Senate confirmation. And don’t forget, Congress can still impeach the president if he has done something truly bad.

Silly Democratic National Committee, boring reporters by tediously pointing out that the central political argument being made by their opponents is totally dishonest! What partisan hackery! How sad that the debate is “descending” to this level! But who’s to say who’s to blame for this situation? Maybe the DNC should have just turned the other cheek and not annoyed Newsweek with its pesky emails.

That said, this is better than what the Kaplan Test Prep Company’s daily newspaper subsidiary has been doing. Over at the Post they think it’s smart to run multiple deliberately misleading op-eds on the subject. It’s the difference, I suppose, between indifference to the truth and active hostility to it.