Or “Tsar” if you will? In terms of the meaning “a guy who is in charge of stuff for a government department”. I first recall this used to describe the guy that Nixon put in charge of Energy during the Energy crisis as “the Energy Czar”. Was this the first use? And why a “czar”?
I don’t know either, but it is definitely a stupid title, and it’s proliferating. Every time I hear some appointee to some department or task force referred to as a “czar” on NPR I turn it off.
Oh, another question… is there ever the official title? Does it appear on their business cards and letterhead?
I’d love a memo from “The Office of the Drug Czar”.
And to make matters somewhat stranger, a friend of mine used to use “Phoning the Czar” as a euphemism for masturbation.
Him: “What are you doing in there? Phoning the Czar?”
Me: “Leave me alone, I’m just using the bathroom” :: Hangs up quickly ::
Well, the Czr/Tsar/Csar was the high Muckamuck running Russia, so obviously the title was based on him. I don’t know why they chose that rather than “Kaiser” or “Emperor” or “Imperator” or any other title they coulda used. Maybe because it was short, and couldn’t plausibly be confused with a real title.
Both “Czar” and “Kaiser” derive ultimately from “Caesar”, which was a family name. Be extremely and ruthlessly successful, and your name will appear thousands of years later as fanciful job descriptions and the names of months. As soon as I can get a large enough invasion force together, I’m making my bid to have “October” renamed “CalMeachamia”
I don’t know why the term czar was originally chosen, but the idea of investing someone with wide powers certainly fits in with the concept of a czar.
Czars are usually created for overseeing issues or matters that do not fall neatly within one particular branch of government. For example, the energy czar predated the Department of Energy, so the energy czar had influence (to some degree) over the Department of Commerce, Dept of Transportation, and so on. Same thing with the drug czar – he coordinates efforts among the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, etc.
And no, the official title is not “czar.” The drug czar’s title is actually the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, for example.
Judging from history, a czar is also the person to be shot after a change of management.
The weird thing is that often public officials who are called a “czar” often have little real power. They’ll be put “in charge” of a bunch of existing agencies but usually will not have the power to hire or fire people or to allocate budgets. So the agencies will often end up ignoring their new “boss”.
Slight hijack:
Has there ever been a female “czar” in the government. If so, what did they call her?
Utah had a female porn czar a couple years ago. She got dumped after massive ridicule.
Calmeachamber sounds better. 
I think the term “czar” first became popular in Washington when there were really big, complex, multiagency problems that seemed to require a single person in charge, with the authority and power to get stuff done (drugs, energy, terrorism, and now, perhaps, post-Katrina reconstruction). I feel like rolling my eyes every time somebody proposes a new czar for this or that - it’s implicitly saying that the current structure of government is ill-suited for whatever the problem *du jour * is. I don’t think the Framers would be too enthused about our yearning for subject-specific autocrats.
The corresponding term for a group of people would be “Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.”