TMV’s NOTE TO READERS: This was posted yesterday. Yesterday morning this site was down for a few hours. Due to its importance we are REPOSTING IT for today’s blog. Your own views in comments under this post are welcome.
The time has come to be exceedingly blunt: President George Bush needs to fire FEMA chief Michael Brown NOW if he is to stem a credibility crisis to convince all but his staunch partisans (who automatically tout the establishment line) that he truly values sound administration and protection of the public versus political cronyism and political CYA.
We already did this post which detailed Brown’s less-than-stellar background to fill one of the most vital posts in American life: his last job involved overseeing horse shows, he was reportedly forced out of that due to poor administration and got his FEMA job with the Bush administration due to political connections. And what job does he have? One that is literally a life-and-death job, not just in the case of disasters like Hurricane Katrina but, conceivably, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake or terrorist biological or nuclear attack.
There is no room for horsing around in this job and Brown seems as over his head in his job as the hapless victims who drowned in the hurricane.
What’s particularly shocking is that Bush came to office highly touted as a kind of CEO Business President — one who’d apply business administrative techniques to government, perhaps set a new model. If this is how this kind of government is supposed to work, let’s hope we never see this model in action ever again. Bush can reverse the rotten taste in many non-GOP-activists’ mouths by dumping Brown immediately and showing that he has the kind of high standards that most people would expect from a CEO.
The Talking Dog writes:
The ultimate irony, of course, is that the Harvard MBA President does, indeed, run the nation’s government like a business. An all too typically American business. Brown-nosing the boss, or perhaps having served the boss’s family in some way, and making sure the boss looks good, are all that matters. The customers, the bottom line, the shareholders, the product, the community… well, does worrying about any of those things really get you ahead in modern day America? Or (with some pleasant exceptions) isn’t the way Bush is doing things… those responsible for the worst cock-ups are never held responsible if the boss likes them because they are good brown-nosers… the American way?
But a crackdown by Bush seems easier than said than done for other reasons, as well.
First, there’s Bush’s now, unfortunately immortal on-the-record comment:””Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
And, also, it may be tough to do given reports that the new thrust of the administration’s public effort is to show the President as a leader who’s on the move and shift the blame to state and local officials. If that is indeed what’s in the offing then what does it mean? That a public official who needs to “move in another direction” named Michael Brown will likely remain in his position without any consquences for what can charitably be called “deficiencies”….in his post…so he can replicate the same kind of “job” he did in the case of New Orleans in some future (perhaps even worse) national emergency.
We’re sure that we’ll get emails and comments: “How can you call yourself a moderate? You’re attacking the President!”
In fact, NOT to DEMAND Brown’s immediate departure would be a sign of utter immoderation.
Where does it say that as Americans we’re supposed to give a pass to a President praising an underling who — from most reports — did not have a clue as to what was going on and who seems to be making excuses for one of the worst, most deadly administrative screw-ups in American history?
The New Orleans Times Picayune is similarly furious. Read their whole editorial here but here’s just part of it:
Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a “Today” show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame…….
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: “Buses! And gas!” Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.”
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”
That’s unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Now, if reports are to be believed, Karl Rove is scrambling to put a different face on the administration than the one Americans saw in Katrina’s wake. We saw the face of an administration that talks a tough and convincing game on national security but seemingly doesn’t know how to anticipate or take adult-like responsibility for its mistakes. An administration whose officials say they are tirelessly on guard to protect us, but whose officials were actually scattered around the country on various vacations (and Dick Cheney took his good, ‘ol time in returning — which was not lost on many of us.)
What’s UNDENIABLE is THIS: when Katrina moved towards New Orleans the handwriting wasn’t just on the wall — the wall was beginning to fall.
And Brown seemingly didn’t only fail to act on the falling wall, but he seemingly ignored the handwriting.
Mr. Bush: unless you fire Brown ASAP, even with your trips to the region and Rove apparently getting ready to point the media and GOPers to aim their fire at state and local officials, your administration will seem to be indulging in a cover your ass operation more frantic than an underage stripper whose venue has been suddenly raided by police.
When LBJ was President his then-aide Jack Valenti made a famous, often derided but sincere statement. He said:
“I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my President. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all America, and indeed the growing body of the free world, the morning shall always come.”
I can’t say the same thing about Mike Brown and — I suspect, — neither can a lot of other independent voters.
Or many Democrats.
Or many Republicans.
Perhaps George Bush needs to invite Donald Trump to the White House to utter the words: “You’re fired!”
Bush needs to clean house and eject those who bungled the most fundamental job — protecting Americans, especially because we were constantly told (during the campaign in arguments about why not to elect Democrat John Kerry and at other times) that the Bush administration had us better protected than before 911 in terms of government emergency response with the new Homeland Security apparatus. What the LA Times now tells us is that after Sept. 11 “Washington’s attention turned to terrorism to the exclusion of almost anything else.”
Bush needs to not only use a big broom but a huge vacuum cleaner to suck Brown and any others responsible out of their offices –even if they suck up to him when he presumably asks them for explanations.
Yes, Brownie did a “heck of a job.” Right.
Fire Michael Brown NOW.
OTHERS URGING THE SAME:
Andrew Sullivan He has a TON of links to other bloggers demanding Brown’s resignation here and here.
Jeff Jarvis
Glynn Wilson
Michelle Malkin
Donklephant (calls for firing after disaster relief is over)
Restless Mania
Booker Rising
The Kentucky Democrat
Oliver Willis
UPDATE: Bull Moose says someone else is now actually in charge of FIEMA…
UPDATE II: The Washington Post notes the crisis swirling around him and from his comments it sounds like he wants everyone to know he is some kind of martyr:
Michael D. Brown has been called the accidental director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, caricatured as the failed head of an Arabian horse sporting group who was plucked from obscurity to become President Bush’s point man for the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Amid the swirl of human misery along the Gulf Coast, Brown admitted initially underestimating the impact of Hurricane Katrina, whose winds and water swamped the agency’s preparations. As the nation reeled at images of the calamity, he appeared to blame storm victims by noting that the crisis was worsened by New Orleans residents who did not comply with a mandatory evacuation order.
By last weekend, facing mounting calls for his resignation, he told reporters: “People want to lash out at me, lash out at FEMA. I think that’s fine. Just lash out, because my job is to continue to save lives.”
Should Mel Gibson make a movie about him?
UPDATE III: Josh Marshall reports:”DC Republicans fishing for someone to call for (New Orleans Mayor Ray) Nagin’s resignation.” The move to try and deflect criticism — and blame (hopefully to those with Ds in front of their party affiliation) — continues. Here’s an idea: if you want to force someone to resign why not start with Michael Brown? (OOPS! Wrong party!)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.