Stop Calling Her That!

Call it what you will. Kamala failed at it.

In the room where it happened, March 24, 2001

"I've asked her, the VP, today — because she's the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border."

President Joe Biden - March 24, 2021

---

Okay, to be fair, at no time during that meeting in the State Dining Room did President Biden say anything to the effect of, "Vice President Harris, I hereby dub thee the official Czar (or Czarina) of our southern border."

No, he never said any such thing because, of course, 'czars' don’t actually exist in a democracy. They haven't even existed in Russia since Nicholas II abdicated the throne in 1917.

It’s just a harmless nickname, but it sure has gotten a lot of people pretty worked up, don’t you think?

And it’s not as if Kamala Harris is the first person ever to be referred to as a czar.

When Woodrow Wilson tapped him to head the War Industries Board during World War I, Bernard Baruch became known as the "Czar of American Industry."

He was probably the first to carry the unofficial title, but certainly not the last.

And, despite what the left would have you believe, today’s conservative media fiends did not invent the term as a scarlet letter specifically intended for Kamala Harris.

Since the Wilson administration, more than 100 executive branch officials have borne the quite unofficial title of "czar."

In the 1940s, as he expanded the authority of the federal government, President Roosevelt appointed 19 different people to positions that came with the sobriquet "czar." They managed issues like prices, censorship, manufacturing, shipping, oil, and rubber.

Drug Czar Bill Bennett - 1989

My first recollection of hearing the term in referring to an administration official was in 1989 when President George H.W. Bush appointed Bill Bennett to the official role of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Boy, that certainly is a mouthful, don't you think? What do you say we just call him the Drug Czar?

And that's what people called him. They didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. It was just a word.