I am somewhat amazed, knowing a little about this country's history, that the idea of a "war czar" does not make more people scream about civilian control. I am just cynical enough to believe that politicians generally do not make decisions in order to improve results so much as they make decisisons to cover their own butts. I think this could be one such occasion - "it isn't my fault, I left that up to the war czar...." When things go well, they could take credit and when they go poorly, they'd have somebody else to blame. It isn't republican vs democrat - its politics as usual - the one thing that permeates evenly across party lines.