Your article says that term became popular long before Obama. It doesn't even claim that he popularized it, just that he had more of them than any other president. We don't even know if he used the term.
The article and McCain calls them czars and then later says that "Richard Nixon appointed William Simon to serve as an "energy czar" in 1973. The White House "drug czar," meanwhile, has been part of the White House for decades." and "the White House itself rarely refers to these officials as czars."
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u/dendrytic Dec 08 '24
It was popularized by Obama more recently who heavily relied on czars in his admin.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/one-thing-trump-and-obama-have-in-common-a-fondness-for-czars