Sounding Off:

Have you noticed that “czars” are becoming the fastest-growing segment of the Washington, D.C., population? Our new president has appointed about 20 of them since taking office. He’s got a Drug Czar, a Border Czar, a Health Czar, a Stimulus Czar, a Cyber Czar, a Pay Czar, an Urban Affairs Czar and a Great Lakes Czar (isn’t that discriminating against the smaller lakes?), to name but a few.

My personal favorite is the new “czar” he named to disassemble and rebuild General Motors. This guy’s 31 years old, has yet to graduate from college, has never had a public-sector job, and the next time he sets foot in a car-manufacturing plant will be his first.

These so-called czars were never elected by anyone, have no pesky oversight, do not report to Congress, need not answer to the media and are responsible only to the president who appointed them.

Even his Car Czar, Steve Rattner, who masterminded the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, presumably learned how to do this rather complicated task while working as a reporter for the New York Times.

It struck me that with nearly 10% of our population out of work, we need some creative thinking to manufacture some high-paying new jobs. I’m thinking that President Obama could make a big dent in the unemployment rate by appointing a bevy of new czars.

As an example, Obama could appoint a new Tar Czar. That guy could make sure the potholes get filled in cash-strapped cities like San Francisco, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Chicago, New York and the District of Columbia.

How about a Par Czar? This fellow would be responsible for taking strokes from the golf scores of middle-class union workers and giving them to those few who shoot par or below.

Kind of like a redistribution-of-wealth deal, but for the sports-minded. Instead of taking money from the very few and giving to the many, he’d take strokes from the many and force them on the few. It would serve them right, shoving their talent in our faces that way.

I also recommend the Kansas City Star Czar. This individual would make sure the mainstream media continues to focus most of its fawning reportage on Bo, the president’s new Portuguese water dog, and less on Bo, the laid-off construction worker from Columbia, S.C.

Another suggestion would be the Mars Bar Czar. This guy or gal would be responsible for removing all the sugar from candy, cakes, confections and soft drinks. With sugar out of the picture, there would be no more dessert, obesity would be eliminated, and diabetes would almost assuredly disappear, which would lower health-care costs, making it possible to provide European-style, stand-in-line-forever, die-before-you-get-the- help-you-need, socialized medicine for everyone in America, legal or not, whether they want it or not, absolutely free!

Or not.

I’ll bet you could come up with some czar suggestions of your own. Let’s all write the president with our ideas and start lowering the unemployment rate today!

Chuck Cassity lives in Costa Mesa.