Obama Fills West Wing With Powerful Czars

Stories of agencies working on the same projects and not bothering to coordinate dog every presidential administration, but Barack Obama has an ambitious plan to avoid all that: He’s concentrating power over domestic issues in the hands of White House advisers. “It really is a way of him maximizing the opportunity to control all aspects of these efforts,” a former Clinton staffer tells the Washington Post.

Among Obama’s high-level West Wing aides are Carol Browner, environmental coordinator; Adolfo Carrion, who'll spearhead the urban agenda; and Tom Daschle—also a Cabinet secretary—running the health-care effort. But, warn some critics, Obama is inviting confusion. Says a former Nixon aide, “It's adding a layer of bureaucracy rather than really eliminating one. Everyone will be fighting with everybody.”
(More White House stories.)