Our friend Ed Morrissey has today jumped on the bandwagon of Republicans who have decided that President Obama’s penchant for appointing “czars” such as Van Jones, who recently moved into new digs under the Obama bus, is a bad thing. Describing them as a “proliferation of unaccountable commissars in government,” Ed sees this as a dangerous trend.

It’s well past time for the Republicans to demand answers on the massive expansion of “czars” in the government. A proper Congress would have balked at it regardless of the political parties involved. They represent a deliberate attempt to undermine the role of Congress as a check on executive power, and set a very dangerous precedent for subsequent administrations of both parties. Until now, Congress has jealously protected its Constitutional prerogatives, a task in which the current leadership in the Senate has utterly failed.

My, my… that certainly does sound dangerous. And where did Barack Obama get the idea that he could just run around appointing czars who are beyond the scrutiny of Congress? If nothing else, it seems to be one of those clear cut issues for debate where Democrats favor the idea and Republicans oppose it. Or is it?

I did some checking and found lot’s of complaints about czars, particularly from Steve Benen who was quite upset about the subject… back in 2007. Here’s a list of some of the previous czars that Steve dug up during the tenure of George W. Bush.

2001 cybersecurity czar
2003 Regulatory Czar and AIDS Czar
2004 Manufacturing Czar
2005 Intelligence Czar and Bird Flu Czar and Katrina Czar
2007 Food Safety Czar

Of course, this leads to two pressing questions. I fully admit that I might have missed it, but I did a search of the archives at Captain’s Quarters from Ed’s days running that great site, but I’m not seeing anything about the dangers of Czars under Bush. And, more recently, Steve Benen’s prolific posting doesn’t seem to include any complaints about Obama doing it. In fact, thirteen days ago he was defending the qualifications and dependability of Jones.

Czars are good! No, they’re bad! No, they’re good! Who the hell knows?