When you read this Boston Herald piece you have to think: “Gee, it’s so nice to know that this administration looked for the ‘best and the brightest’ in filling a vital, life-and-death post such as FEMA chief….and perhaps that has something to do with the quality of job performance so far”:
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster.
“I look at FEMA and I shake my head,” said a furious Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday, calling the response “an embarrassment.”
Well — in the reasoning of some readers who’ve emailed us — that MUST mean that Mitt Romney is a “liberal Democrat”, if he makes a statement like that. MORE:
President Bush, after touring the Big Easy, said he was “not satisfied” with the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.
Bush was highly touted as the first businessman CEO type President when he first took office. Wouldn’t a CEO help Brown “move in another direction” after the controversy and bad customer response to his job performance (whether it’s his fault or due to other factors) so far?
And U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch predicted there would be hearings on Capitol Hill over the mishandled operation.
And the question will become: will both parties brutally look at what went wrong or will some GOPers indulge in CYA and turn this into yet another issue where party trumps issue? And will Democrats genuinely seek to find out what went wrong or turn it into a larger opportunity to go after the Bush administration? If both parties could stick to sincerely finding answers to the lingering questions it might help.
Brown – formerly an estates and family lawyer – this week has has made several shocking public admissions, including interviews where he suggested FEMA was unaware of the misery and desperation of refugees stranded at the New Orleans convention center.
Indeed. The news media seemed to be ahead of FEMA in knowing what was going on — and so did local and state officials (who are also under fire for poor pre-and post job performances).
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.
Perhaps that explains all the horsing around that went on until the government got the post-disaster program underway….
`We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. “This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,” she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
“He was asked to resign,” Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president’s re-election campaign.
JUST the man and qualifications needed to be in charge of FEMA, an agency Americans would rely on in the case of natural disasters or terrorist attacks…….
UPDATE: Centerfield’s Rick Heller comments on this post. A small excerpt (but read it all):
Several days ago, I said that it looked like somebody ought to be fired. Mike Brown now seems like an obvious candidate. But I don’t think that would be enough.
I think many of you know that I don’t approve of President Bush’s performance. But it’s not conservative principles I object to; rather, it’s the poor way they have applied under this administration, and IMHO, the kneejerk way conservatives have defended the President from attacks, whether from kneejerk liberals or thoughtful critics.