Another Czar-uption over underage gay rape?
September 29, 2009
Literally, you can’t make this crap up. The latest news on yet another Obama Czar with problems is Kevin Jennings the ’safe school czar’. The Washington Times is reporting that Mr. Jennings, as a high school teacher, learned a 15-year old student was having sex with an “older man”. At the time, the law required that he report the incident – at the very least the student was the victim of statutory rape. Jennings described the event to another teacher explaining “the 15-year-old boy met the “older man” in a “bus station bathroom” and was taken to the older man’s home that night.” Jennings’ peer begged him to report the incident and when Jennings’ refused the teacher called his failure to report the statutory rape “unethical”. Jennings’ threatened to sue the teacher for defamation claiming he had no evidence any sort of sexual act took place. However, according to the Times story, Jennings clearly knew the student was having intercourse with the older man in his book, “One Teacher in 10″ and then in various speeches the latest of which in 2000 to the Iowa chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Is this the best guy we could get for this job? Who is in charge of vetting these people?
On torture and czars. . .
September 16, 2009
Do words matter? Can we simply change the name of something and turn it into something completely different? Our presidents seem to think so. . .
My friends on the Left had a hard time with the Bush administration for using the term – enhanced interrogation. They insisted that Bush has simply created a new word(s) for torture. According to the United Nations Convention Against Torture our ‘enhanced interrogation’ tactics were, in fact, torture. Here is the definition:
…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.
Anyway you read it, what we were doing was torture. Was it illegal? Not according to the Geneva Convention. Bush had cover in that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were not signatories to the Geneva Convention (GCII) and as a result they were not considered ‘protected persons’. I won’t argue for or against the methods we used to extract information from terrorists, but I will argue that changing the name didn’t change a thing.
Today the Obama administration claimed that they don’t have ANY Czars working for the president. Anita Dunn, for the White House, explains, “Just to be clear, the job title “czar” doesn’t exist in the Obama Administration.” So just because you don’t call a Czar a Czar they aren’t Czars? Come on. Lets not be silly. I argued in a post earlier this month that the Senate should start using their power of advice and consent to vet these ‘czars’. I also noted that since the Czar title was informal there was no official count of the number of Czars in the White House. To be clear, Obama didn’t start the madness – Goerge Bush did, appointing more than 30 Czars during his eight years as president.
Obama is allowed to appoint 1,000 Czars if he wishes – he would be well within his right as president. My argument is with the Senate – they need to do their job. Start vetting these people ASAP. I am disappointed, but not surprised that the administration would attempt to ‘hide’ from their Czars by simply suggesting they don’t have any. This is dishonest. Here is a list of the positions that are NOT called Czars:
| Name | Czar Title | Actual (boring) Title |
| Herb Allison | TARP Czar | Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability |
| Alan Bersin | Border Czar | Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs |
| Dennis Blair | Intelligence Czar | Director of National Intelligence |
| John Brennan | Terrorism Czar | Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security |
| Carol Browner | Energy Czar | Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change |
| Adolfo Carrion, Jr | Urban Affairs Czar | Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs |
| Ashton Carter | Weapons Czar | Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics |
| Aneesh Chopra | Technology Czar | Chief Technology Officer |
| Jeffrey Crowley | AIDS Czar | Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy |
| Cameron Davis | Great Lakes Czar | Special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan |
| Nancy-Ann DeParle | Health Czar | Director of the White House Office of Health Reform |
| Earl Devaney | Stimulus Accountability Czar | Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board |
| Joshua DuBois | Faith-based Czar | Director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships |
| Kenneth Feinberg | Pay Czar | Special Master on executive pay |
| Danny Fried | Guantanamo Closure Czar | Special envoy to oversee the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay |
| J. Scott Gration | Sudan Czar | Special Envoy to Sudan |
| Richard Holbrooke | Afghanistan Czar | Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan |
| John Holdren | Science Czar | Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology |
| Van Jones | Green Jobs Czar | Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality |
| Gil Kerlikowske | Drug Czar | Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy |
| Vivek Kundra | Information Czar | Federal Chief Information Officer |
| George Mitchell | Mideast Peace Czar | Special Envoy to the Middle East |
| Ed Montgomery | Car Czar | Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers |
| Dennis Ross | Mideast Policy Czar | Special Adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia |
| Gary Samore | WMD Czar | Coordinator for the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism |
| Todd Stern | Climate Czar | Special Envoy for Climate Change |
| Cass Sunstein | Regulatory Czar | Director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs |
| Paul Volcker | Economic Czar | Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board |
