Some of the email messages sent by former FEMA director Michael Brown have been released. They do not make Brown, who is currently acting as a “consultant” and still receiving money from FEMA equivalent to his salary as chief of the agency, look as if he had a sense of the scope or urgency of the disaster in the wake of hurricane Katrina, nor does Brown come across as the “strong leader” he presented himself to be in the Congressional hearings after the disaster.
While political patronage has a long history in the United States and has been practiced by both parties as a matter of routine, perhaps we as voters should reconsider the position, “It has always been this way,” and begin insisting that many federal agencies should be directed by professionals in the field rather than by people who were given the job because they acted as political operatives for a successful candidate. The price of this patronage may now be too high. The world has changed over the years, we should change accordingly.
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Cross-posted to Random Fate.