Do you think that when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the naming of a “;car czar”; to oversee the running of G.M., Ford and Chrysler that she knew one of the definitions of “;czar”; is “;autocrat”;? While “;car czar”; is a cute title because the two words share many of the same letters, I think the title “;auto crat”; would be more appropriate in this case.

I've never understood America's infatuation with czars. Whenever there's a crisis in this country, there's immediate talk of appointing someone a czar to solve the problem. I thought we formed this republic in large part to be done with czars, kings, emperors, potentates and grand poobahs.

And why do we suddenly revert to czars at critical times when history tells us that czarism generally leads to great unpleasantness?

In the beginning there were Roman emperors, and they were all named Caesar. They were a motley crew for the most part, good at having thumping big marble buildings erected but equally good at killing each other and scaring the bejesus (sometimes literally) out of the peasantry.

The term “;Caesar”; migrated to Russia, where it became tsar, tzar or czar, depending on whom you asked. It seems that someone should have appointed a tsar tzar czar to sort that all out. The best-known tsar, the man from whom all future tsars would be measured in terms of their ruthlessness and psychotic tendencies, was Ivan the Infinitely Reasonable. That's what his speechwriters called him. He was better known in the provinces as Ivan the Terrible, since he slaughtered a lot of people, as well as his only son and heir and all of his wives except the ones he sent to nunneries.

  Subsequent Russian tsars were either tyrants or knuckleheads. In the knucklehead category was Tsar Nicholas II, whose deft management of the country (including listening to the counsel of a scruffy religious con man named Rasputin) led to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. And it's been just one big party for Russians since then.

Nevertheless, America embraced the concept of tsars or czars. In 1930, Harry J. Anslinger was appointed the country's first drug czar to oversee the first war on drugs. He was so effective that illegal drugs have not been a problem in this country ever since.

Then President Johnson declared a war on poverty and appointed a poverty czar, and we haven't had poverty since.

Then President Nixon appointed another drug czar, just to make sure the war on drugs was really over. It was.

Then President Clinton made Richard Clarke the anti-terrorism czar, and worldwide terrorism was stomped out for good.

And so, in light of the great success of those American czars and others throughout history, we stand on the brink of naming a car czar to save the auto industry and possibly the entire national economy. I, for one, think it's really going to work this time, or my name isn't Czar Charles the Infinitely Optimistic.