POLITICO'S headline sets the tone for the debate: "GOP czar revolt scores its first win as Van Jones resigns". The idea that the White House has a problem with "tsars" is an obscure one that has become a front-burner in the last 72 hours, ever since Mr Jones quit his "green jobs" role in a flurry of controversy. Barack Obama is not the first president to create new micro-agencies and micro-jobs under the aegis of the White House, instead of submitting nominees for these jobs to the Senate. But Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, argues, "By appointing a virtual army of 'tsars'... the president has embarked on an end-run around the legislative branch of historic proportions."

Mr Cantor has a point. On the one hand, the popularisation of the "tsar" classification is almost an accident of the news industry. Cass Sunstein, for example, has been nominated to become the new administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. That's a bit unwieldy for a headline, so he's been called the "regulatory tsar". And so he's ended up in arguments like Mr Cantor's, as an example of executive power gone Godzilla-in-Tokyo, even though he's been vetted by the Senate.

But Mr Cantor is right in noting that Mr Obama has appointed a historic number of new officials unaccountable to the Congress, several of them regulators with broad jurisdicitions like "car tsar", several of them activists with roles like "domestic violence tsar". The process has gotten badly out of whack. The very day that Mr Jones quit, Mr Obama promoted Ron Bloom to the new job of "manufacturing tsar". It's easy to see why Republicans are blanching at this. It was Robert Byrd, the senior member of the Senate and a former Democratic majority leader, who first complained about the proliferation of "tsars".

It's the Senate, however, which shares the blame for this mess. Look at Mr Sunstein. Nominated in January, he has been filibustered for nine months. Two Republican senators have placed "holds" on his nomination, using a power that was once reserved for extreme circumstances to pitch a fit about Mr Sunstein's controversial view of... hunting rights. (He doesn't like hunting.) Another top-level nominee, Dawn Johnsen, has been stalled during the same period despite having 57 on-the-record votes in her favour.

What's a president to do here? On the one hand, he can submit nominees to the Senate and wait up to nine months for them to get confirmed. On the other, he can slash the Gordian Knot and get them on the job immediately. The temptation to make that end-run is powerful and understandable. But the result is an ornery stand-off between the executive and legislative branch, both convinced that the other branch is abusing its power.

Neither side is going to blink here. But an honest broker might get them to compromise. The White House could cool off on appointing new ministers with vast portfolios. The Senate could stop threatening filibusters and "holds" of every nominee. Things could work like they did 20 or so years ago. It's unlikely, but it would be a lot more sane.

(Portrait of Ivan IV by Viktor Vasnetsov)