Czar gazing.

Forget nanny state--think nyanya state. With nearly two dozen new czars, President Obama has set a new record for cooks in a Kitchen Cabinet.

The White House-based policy coordinators became prominent in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush used them to prosecute the failed War on Drugs, with Bill Bennett one of the first to hold the imperial title. Bill Clinton added czars for healthcare and AIDS, while George W. Bush expanded the czardom to include cyber-security and national intelligence.

These days the president has czars to run all facets of the empire--the car industry, stimulus accountability, domestic violence, even the Great Lakes. Some of the czars are relative commoners crowned from obscurity. Others are luminaries who can't be troubled with running a large bureaucratic apparatus while whispering in the president's ear: Czar of the Economy Paul Volcker, Czar of Regulation Cass Sunstein, and Czar of Executive Pay Kenneth Feinberg, the former Special Master of 9/11 compensation.

As with special foreign envoys, these off-the-flowchart appointments enjoy easy access, working among the inner circle of courtiers known as the Executive Office of the President. Many are not subject to Senate confirmation and may consequently qualify for executive privilege immunity, which can be invoked to refuse requests to testify before Congress.

The menacing tone of the term should illustrate the dangerous precedent set by these unaccountable members of the executive branch. The appointment of czars began as a tool for temporary coordination on a front-burner issues.

Now they are a way for the president to unilaterally add federal tentacles by signing an executive order, no doubt hastily drafted alongside the press release touting the latest superhero to join the team.