(First, I have to ask: Why is everyone doing anything critical a czar and why is everything we want to stop a war? Really. English is a very rich language, at least 170K words, not including LOL, etc. I dunno about your family but the czar, the real czar, was not popular in mine. In fact, said person caused all my grandparents to leave their homes and come to America. Having gotten that out of my system, let me say...)
Another good pick in Tom Daschle as nominee for head of Health and Human Services and newly-named Health Reform--let me throw out some other interesting options--Director-- wait, that's what the Prez-to-be actually called him but for the press: Lion, Luminary, Dignitary...ok, Czar.
Daschle (btw, Happy Birthday last Tues, Tom--he's my Facebook friend, of course, no, just kidding) has been added to our latest installment of the US Gov network map, which you can run here. For those unfamiliar with the reach of HHS, hugely influential health care organizations like the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention hang as leaves off the post of Deputy Secretary of HHS. The map also shows the next level down of HHS's org chart. And, we've added Daschle to our running list of Cabinet nominees.
From an organizational perspective (and my peculiar language objections aside), it's interesting that Daschle is getting two hats: Secretary of HHS and Director of Health Care Reform, hence the moniker "health care czar." His deputy at the White House for Health Care Reform is slated to be Jeanne Lambrew; thus we've added her to the White House appointee list (we don't yet know who the Deputy will be at HHS).
We put Daschle on the map with both hats. As reported by CNN ("Obama taps Daschle as 'lead architect' of health care plan"), President-elect Obama said, "[Daschle] will be responsible not just for implementing our health care plan. He will also be the lead architect of that plan." Translation: Generally speaking, architectural plans are drawn up at the White House; implementation takes place over at the departments. Thus, Daschle will be in the rare position of both drafting the plan and making sure that it happens.
