APPOINTMENTS

Friday, February 13, 2009 8:37 AM

Seattle Police Chief Tapped As Drug Czar, Report Says

President Obama has selected Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation's next drug czar, an administration official told the Associated Press Thursday.

Kerlikowske will lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a position that has in past administrations been a Cabinet-level post, but the Obama administration has not decided its status, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no official announcement has been made.

Kerlikowske joined Seattle's police force in 2000 after overseeing community policing grants at the Justice Department and has worked as a police officer in Florida and New York.

In the latest edition of National Journal Magazine, reporter Will Englund offers insight into the increasing role of czars in the Obama administration.

Englund reports that the surprisingly lengthy history of White House czars has, overall, not been particularly brilliant. Every recent administration has featured a drug czar -- toothless because he lacks real budgetary authority, hopeless because he is assigned to coordinate the policies of intractably jealous and secretive police agencies, and feckless because his job is to take care of something the president doesn't want to be bothered with.

The senator who began pushing in 1982 for the creation of the drug czar post is now vice president of the United States, and it will be interesting to see how much attention Joe Biden pays to the newest czar.

William Bennett was the first drug czar, under George H.W. Bush, and he acknowledged being frustrated by a lack of authority. Gen. Barry McCaffrey was drug czar under Bill Clinton, and although by law he had some role in budget-setting, in practice the Office of Management and Budget didn't give him a seat at the table, according to Winograd. "If it doesn't include the budget, it doesn't mean anything in Washington," says Morley Winograd, who was head of Vice President Gore's commission for reinventing government. And although others say that's not always true, it was nevertheless the case that McCaffrey had no clout. The agencies he was supposed to be coordinating resisted him at every turn.

- Read the complete analysis of policy czars and their prospects for success (subscription).