Here a Tsar, there a Tsar, everywhere a Tsar-Tsar.

The Economist this week posts an impassioned plea for everyone to stop calling government officials Tsars:

Newish title-holders include Canada’s copyright tsar, New Orleans’s recovery tsar, Singapore’s baby tsar, Tony Blair’s respect tsar, Thailand’s condom tsar and America’s nipple tsar (Michael Powell, whose job as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was to prevent a repetition of Janet Jackson’s televised bosom exposure). They join an ever-swelling band of AIDS tsars, counter-terrorism tsars, cyber-security tsars, economy tsars, food-safety tsars, learning-disability tsars, piracy tsars, water tsars and even mental-health-service-user tsars.

[...]And the Russians—yes, of all people, the Russians—have succumbed to an advertising tsar. A haemophilia tsar cannot be far away.

Enough. Please.

Tagged as: History