One clear method of determining if someone is engaged in the art of bullshit is to ask: was this person complaining as loudly about [insert bullshit cause] when their side was engaged in the same behavior. By that measure, the heavily put-on stylings of offense demonstrated by Republicans over President Obama’s appointment of experts (aka “czars”) is the height of the fine art of bullshit.

See, once you start actually examining these positions in a reality-based way, it’s hard to know where Bennett and his colleagues derive their eighteen-member list and even harder to determine how, precisely, any of these people imperil the Constitution. But all of that’s beside the point. “Czars” have been with us since the Nixon White House and the previous administration had a crap-ton of them about whom none of these Senators, to my recollection, ever complained. It’s hard to look at the efforts of Senator Bennett and his colleagues as anything other than the ministrations of people who simply have no idea what they are even talking about. Hopefully, their concerns will be answered in a letter from the White House Sarcasm Czar.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/group-of-republican-senat_n_287698.html

Jason Linkins at HuffPo has written an excellent piece which closes…

See, once you start actually examining these positions in a reality-based way, it’s hard to know where Bennett and his colleagues derive their eighteen-member list and even harder to determine how, precisely, any of these people imperil the Constitution. But all of that’s beside the point. “Czars” have been with us since the Nixon White House and the previous administration had a crap-ton of them about whom none of these Senators, to my recollection, ever complained. It’s hard to look at the efforts of Senator Bennett and his colleagues as anything other than the ministrations of people who simply have no idea what they are even talking about. Hopefully, their concerns will be answered in a letter from the White House Sarcasm Czar.

Linkins has a followup article today about a “CZAR Accountability & Reform Act of 2009” where you can see that both the Senate and House Republicans are doubling down on bullshit.

David Weigel at the Washington Independent did a similar review of the so-called czar controversy and came to similar conclusions.

A debate about the power of the executive branch and the collapsing trust between the president and the Senate — it’s the constant filibusters of presidential nominees that really started this process of end-runs around confirmation hearings — would be healthy. But so far this “czars” debate seems like a witch hunt egged on by sloppy reporting.

Let’s review: many of the people the Right is complaining about have been confirmed by the Senate. For those who have not, the vast majority of them are holding advisory positions established by previous presidents, Democratic and Republican. Today the White House Communications Director responded to all the hoopla. Yet the complaints continue, and many in the press repeat the charges without any clarifying information which would reveal this display for what it is: bullshit.
Knowing that, read this piece at conservative site Hot Air. Look how proud they are of their bullshit! They may even actually believe it!
Once the nutjobs on the Right got rid of Van Jones, they felt emboldened to continue their attacks and insane demands, their inconsistent grievances and illogical conclusions. It would have been really wonderful to have some of these folks on the Right so concerned with overreaching executive authority for something substantive like manipulation of intelligence, establishment of secret prisons, politicization of the justice department, self-assigned authority to violate hundreds of laws via signing statements or suspension of the 2002 Geneva Agreements.
But you know why none of these people were saying anything then, because they are entirely, and I mean entirely, full of bullshit.
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