The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings yesterday on the confirmation of Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as the administration’s new “war czar.” Lute was a controversial pick for the job, having previously gone on record with his own doubts about the president’s new strategy for bringing stability to Iraq, aka the surge. Beyond that, the mismanaged process by which Lute was finally selected was also controversial–at least three former generals turned the job down before the administration offered it to Lute. And finally, there are more than a few observers who questioned whether there was any merit at all to the position. Czars don’t exactly have a stellar track record for getting things done in Washington, one need only look at the position of “drug czar”–an office that was created during the Reagan administration despite opposition from Reagan himself–to see that adding more bureaucracy is no guaranteed path to victory.