I was on a long drive but kept glued to a zillion stations to listen to what seemed to be a political train wreck occurring in slow motion hosted by GOPers in Congress: former FEMA chief Michael Brown’s testimony where he defended himself, FEMA and his world-famous resume.
Listening to the tone of at least some of the Congressmen’s questions, something nearly psychic occurred: as I drove through California’s wine country and listened to the radio, I could actually see before my eyes some independent thinking Republicans with their jaws hanging down to the floor.
And Brown apparently didn’t hear the insistence from the White House and many GOPers that they absolutely do not want a “blame game” because he basically blamed the Hurricane Katrina mess on paralyzed and clashing Louisiana politicos — while making a point to note that Louisiana had Democratic leaders versus Republicans in other storm-ravaged states, implying that their party is why they did a better storm response job (you see, political party has everything to do with job performance — so does that mean Brown’s a Democrat?).
Basically, Brown suggested that Louisiana’s governor and New Orleans’ mayor are incompetent which seems a bit like the pot calling the pot a pot.
The Washington Post piece reporting this classic testimony (linked above) is a Saturday Night Live sketch outline in waiting:
Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown said yesterday that it was not his job to take over the evacuation of New Orleans and rescue the drowning city from Hurricane Katrina, blaming Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and “dysfunctional” state officials for the government’s failed response to the disaster.
Over six hours of tense and at times angry testimony to a House investigative panel whose members condemned and derided him, Brown strongly defended his agency and himself against what he called “false, defamatory statements” spread by the news media about the agency’s capabilities after the hurricane.
These were Republicans saying this. Some will now suggest that these Republicans MUST really be Democratic liberals in their hearts (or RINOS)…. MORE:
But he also spread responsibility widely for what President Bush has called an inadequate response to a White House that he said was fully apprised before Katrina’s Aug. 29 landfall, to a Department of Homeland Security whose leaders cut money and staff for three years as they pursued the “emaciation of FEMA,” and to a military he said was slow to react.
Brown admitted that FEMA’s ability to move life-sustaining supplies was flawed and “easily overwhelmed” by Katrina’s scale. He said that emergency communications broke down because the country made little “real progress” in learning from the 2001 terrorist attacks, and he warned that if U.S. authorities remain focused on preparing for terrorism instead of natural disasters, “then we’re going to fail.”
That was definitely useful: that’s how you fix problems by listing them and correcting them. AND:
Brown said he is “happy to be a scapegoat . . . if it means that the FEMA that I knew when I came here is going to be able to be reborn and we’re going to be able to get it back to where it was” when he joined the agency in 2001.
Brown, 50, took responsibility for two mistakes. He said he should have set up regular media briefings instead of conducting numerous television interviews. He added: “I very strongly, personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together.”
But all that represents is basically saying he didn’t get the news out the way he wanted — that the pesky press and networks kept on top of it and got stuff out that was too negative.
His point on Blanco and Nagin is well taken, however: if the feds seemed incapable of responding to the bigger picture, Blanco and Nagin were in the middle of it and knew the big picture. If they were overwhelmed physically, reports suggest they were overwhelmed mentally as well. And then THIS:
“You want me to be this superhero,” Brown told Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.). Instead, he said, his role as federal coordinator was to talk to Blanco and Nagin and encourage them “to do their obligation to their citizens. I am not a dictator, and I . . . cannot go in there and force them to do that. “
Shays expressed shock. “The whole reason why I think you’re there is to take command of coordinating — working with, not just complaining about, what other people are doing,” Shays said.
“You can try to throw as much as you can on the backs of Louisianans, but I’m a witness as to what happened in Mississippi. You folks fell on your face,” said Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who lost his home to the hurricane.
In Baton Rouge, La., Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said, “Mike Brown wasn’t engaged then, and he surely isn’t now. He should have been watching CNN instead of the Disney Channel.” Nagin spokeswoman Sally Forman said, “The governor and the mayor were totally on the same page.”
Brown’s testimony didn’t get rave reviews from the Los Angeles Times, either:
Brown, who recently resigned as FEMA’s chief amid harsh criticism of his own performance and credentials for the job, told a House committee that Louisiana’s efforts were “dysfunctional” as Katrina bore down on New Orleans. Brown’s remarks represented his first full public accounting of how he handled the emergency relief effort.
But in more than six hours of testimony, Brown also blamed the Bush administration for what he termed the “emaciation” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He depicted an agency that had lost key personnel, budget fights and a sense of mission after being merged with the Department of Homeland Security.
His account of missteps in the response to Katrina and problems surrounding FEMA met with withering attacks from committee members.
Two lawmakers told Brown they were glad he was no longer FEMA’s chief. One of them, Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., derided Brown as “clueless,” and questioned why he was still on FEMA’s payroll after resigning Sept. 12.
The sometimes-caustic exchanges between Brown and panel members — most of them Republicans — appeared likely to keep the Bush administration on the political defensive as it tries to project a strong commitment and direction in dealing with rebuilding New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast.
And the New York Times noted how Brown’s testimony did not help President George Bush or the White House:
Michael D. Brown, who stepped down as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the government’s much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, told a Congressional committee on Tuesday that he had warned the White House of impending disaster several days before the storm struck.
Asked when the White House became aware that a “disaster was looming” in the Gulf Coast region, Mr. Brown said he had warned Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush’s chief of staff, at least three days before the hurricane hit New Orleans on Aug. 28.
“They were aware of that by Thursday or Friday because Andy Card and I were communicating at that point,” Mr. Brown told a special House committee investigating the government’s response. “In fact, I remember saying to Andy at one point that this is going to be a bad one. They were focused about it. They knew it.”
In his testimony, Mr. Brown was careful not to blame President Bush or the White House for the government’s handling of the situation. But his comments raised questions about whether the White House responded aggressively enough in light of the warnings Mr. Brown said he offered.
The Times report also contains this gem:
Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, scornfully compared Mr. Brown with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, who was widely praised for his leadership after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“I can’t help but wonder how different the answers would be if someone like Rudy Giuliani had been in your position instead of you,” Mr. Shays said. Mr. Brown responded angrily, saying, “I never thought I’d sit here and be berated because I’m not Rudy Giuliani.”
Sorry, Mr. Brown. You worked with horses but Guiliani would have made hay with this crisis: he would have been on it immediately and woe to any federal, local or state officials who didn’t focus on the key goals: getting ready for the storm as it moved in, responding to it and rescuing (food, water, etc) people.
The Post notes fierce partisan bickering over how the administration handled Katrina. One immediate sign that the administration knows it didn’t do what it should have done was its much better, professional and efficient response to Hurricane Rita. And in this post-Katrina era GWB seems to now be setting a record for trips to a storm area, as opposed to vacation time.
The Post points out that Brown’s testimony “handed new ammunition to leaders in both parties who have expressed growing misgivings over the course of homeland security.” Democrats officially boycotted these hearings, although a few Demmies were on hand to pepper him with questions.
Yet if Brown’s testimony proves to be a negative, it won’t be because of the Democrat’s largely symbolic boycott. The bottom line is that Brown — who the media thought had left FEMA but is now a paid consultant — showed little desire to brutally analyze his own performance so that future mistakes won’t be made; he mostly showed a zeal to defend it (which is human nature).
The REAL QUESTION is that now that he has testified under oath, how will his responses to questions from the Republicans hold up to the inevitable scrutiny that’s most certainly underway right now as journalists, some bloggers and Democratic bigwigs go over every assertion? All of the above have their own motivations for making sure Brown’s assertions were accurate and to make it known if there are any small, big, or perjury-qualifying errors.
It’s in their interest to do so — just as it was in Brown’s interest to put himself in the best light as possible….which in the end didn’t really put his administration in a good light as an administration seeking to correct all storm response and rescue errors.
How do you correct your own errors if you have someone who’s defensive and points the finger of blame at other levels of government so much that his finger should be registered as a lethal weapon?
VIDEO at Crooks And Liars.
A CROSS SECTION OF OTHER VOICES ON BROWN’S TESTIMONY
The thing this article did not note is that Michael Brown did take responsibility. Of course he isn’t going to take all of it, because all of the responsibility does not lie with him. FEMA, along with the federal, state, and local government all the share the blame. Anyways what is the deal with sorting out the blame at this time? It hasn’t even been a month since Katrina hit, residents haven’t returned to their neighborhoods and we’re holding hearings to decide where the blame goes? It wasn’t until 14 months after the 9/11 attacks that a commission was held to find out where the blame resides.
—Don Surber:”The guy’s a piece of work. Blanco and Nagin, you’ve been hosed by a pro. He was the kid who instigated the schoolyard fights, then tattle-taled to the principal. Sir Isaac Newton stood on the shoulders of giants. Brown stands on the backs of a lot of people he verbally kneecapped.”
—Michelle Malkin, who had demanded Brown resign, says Brown’s testimony has not changed her feelings one bit:
Michael Brown’s testimony before Congress is receiving some rave reviews. Some e-mailers are demanding that Brown critics, myself included, apologize. Puh-lease. Don’t mistake the after-the-fact appearance of competence for demonstrated leadership in crisis. Read his own words. Brown’s testimony today was about creating the illusion of accountability (“My biggest mistake was…”) while simultaneously passing the buck all in one breath (“…was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”)
And while Brown stressed that FEMA was not a first-responder agency, he took contradictory pains to show how he had taken aggressive steps to send a special FEMA employee to hold Ray Nagin’s hand before landfall “because we knew the mayor was going to have problems.” DHS chief Michael Chertoff, and ultimately President Bush, made the decision to recall Brown from the disaster zone and accept his resignation. Their verdict still stands. So does mine.
I suggested below that the administration needed to maintain control over what Michael Brown said and that they had two choices:
Keep him on the payroll
Have him killed
Well they took door number one and after today’s performance before a House panel today it appears door two would have been a better choice.
—Frogsdong:”The House committee members wasted no time in firing hard shots at Mike Brown, but I hope they don’t lay all of it on him. Mike Brown was inadequate for the job of Director of FEMA, but who hired him, and who hired Joe Allbaugh to wreck FEMA? Lots of people have been trying very hard to pass this buck, and a lot of right-wing bloggers have been trying to blow smoke for Bush by saying that there is a lot of blame to go around, but FEMA was a complete disaster while the others in this immorality tale simply may have made some errors in judgement. And the FEMA failures go right to the top, to the guy who made the personnel decisions.”
—Steve Soto:”Well, Rove needs to find the rocket scientist whose idea it was to send former FEMA chief Michael Brown to Congress first to blame the locals for what went wrong. It looks like Brown got handed his head by members of Congress today. Going for the trifecta, Brown then managed to blame his boss DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, and then told the commission that he plainly informed Bush and Andy Card the weekend before the storm came aground that Katrina “was going to be a bad one.â€?’
—Macsmind:
I’ve been waiting for this. Critics of Brown were quick to call for his head forgetting the convenientfact that the guy didn’t “hire himself”……
Simply put, the guy – whether qualified or not (hell that doesn’t stop bloggers from trying to be journalists), handled disasters for the last two years, and no one was calling for his head….At least Brown had the guts to say what so-called conservatives and even the President wouldn’t say, but that which we all know to be absolutely true. Katrina Screwup = The leadership of Louisiana are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops.
—Blogs for Bush’s Mark Noonan has a post that should be read in full. Here’s a small taste 4 U:
This might seem an impossible task, but when I clicked on the TV early yesterday morning and saw Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT) insulting Michael Brown and grandstanding with no effort to actually obtain information from Mr. Brown, my blood began to boil. From all appearances, the members of the committee interrogating Brown were convinced of his guilt and would only be satisfied with him grovelling and begging for forgiveness. As this news story points out, Michael Brown refused to bend the knee.
What we have here is an outgrowth of the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina – coverage which we now know was almost entirely inaccurate. Outside of the facts that a hurricane hit and flooding resulted, I can’t think of anything else reported which was either relevant or trut. The reporting we did get played entirely to emotion, sensationalism and the quest for high ratings. Part of this phony media narrative of Katrina is the assertion that Michael Brown completely dropped the ball as head of FEMA. Did Michael Brown drop the ball? Only a careful sifting of the facts post-mortem will tell the tale…and it is disgusting that Congress seems more interested in playing to the MSM gallery and public opinion polling than working for truth.
I’m not going to go into whether the criticisms leveled against him are valid, or whether his criticisms of Blanco and Nagin are either. But one thing I do know. I’m not a fan of President Bush, but I will give him credit for his speech from the French Quarter in which he accepted the criticisms. Because a mark of a good leader is one who accepts responsibility for the failures of those who report to him, and recognizes that whatever happens to him, he either created, promoted, or allowed. Doing that is necessary (but not sufficient) for being a good leader.
Brown, by choosing to play the blame game, has clearly alienated even many Republicans, most notably Rep. Christopher Shays, who, publicly and on the record, applauded his departure. If this is reflective on how he ran FEMA during his tenure, I’m not the least bit surprised that the response was substandard.
—Horse’s Ass.org:”I was out most of the day, and only just had a chance to view the clip (courtesy of Think Progress) of former FEMA director Michael Brown, giving my blog a free plug before a congressional subcommittee. Oh my. I had thought he was just blaming me for his downfall… I hadn’t realized he was actually blaming me for FEMA’s ineffectual response.” (Read it all. Note: Permalink does NOT work so we’ve linked to this site’s general link)
—John at Powerline has a post that should be read in full. A small taste:
On the whole, Brown did an excellent job….Of those who participated in the hearing, Brown was by far the most impressive. Democratic Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana was his party’s designated hit-man, but it was painfully evident that his opening speech was a filibuster. He didn’t dare stop talking for fear that Brown would have an opportunity to answer his questions. But it wasn’t just the Democrats; “Republican” Congressman Christopher Shays, too, was an ill-informed disgrace.
It’s hard to say what a marginally-informed citizen would make of the Katrina hearing, but my own impression was that the only person in the room who had any idea what he was talking about was Michael Brown. …No doubt FEMA’s performance was imperfect. What else is new? But Michael Brown didn’t flood New Orleans. Nor did he fail to order a mandatory evacuation. Nor, when the order was finally given by the appropriate authorities, was he the one who failed to carry it out competently. I thought it was a mistake when President Bush cashiered Brown, and his performance tonight validates that judgment. FEMA’s position is eminently defensible. But the Bush administration, historically, has failed to defend its own agencies aggressively, and instead has passively yielded to the news cycle.
—Capital Buzz:”At this point everyone knows that Mike Brown’s resume was exaggerated. But what many people don’t know is that Brown signed an affidavit attesting to his resume’s accuracy when he was first nominated to be the head of FEMA. With his appearance before Congress today, Brown contradicted that affidavit and could now face criminal charges…..”
—Reed Between The Lines:”Former FEMA head Michael Brown appeared before a House select committee Tuesday. Brown blamed everyone for the failures in New Orleans…minus himself….Brown’s claim that Louisiana Governor Blanco “fostered chaos” and that she failed “to order a mandatory evacuation more than a day before Katrina hit” appear to be either groundless or simply a lie.”
—Gateway Pundit:”This is further evidence that the democrats have no desire for the truth of this catastrophe. If they would hear all of the information and then make a decision about the validity of the investigation, that would be one thing. But, the fact that they choose to boycott proves their intolerance for any facts presented that counter their made up minds that the federal government is to blame for the tragedy (even all of the 1,000 deaths!). Heaven forbid if someone would question the state or local officials for mistakes made. This may get you a left uppercut from the pretty Senator Landrieu! The democrats boycott leaves no doubt that all along their goal was to politicize rather than get to the truth of Katrina failures…”
—bRight & Early:”If you’ll forgive one more analogy, isn’t this like blaming the waitress when your food doesn’t taste good? Resposibility links with the part of a task someone is supposed to cary out. If that waitress put your order in incorrectly, yes the blame is hers. But, if she did her job and the cook is just lousy, the blame goes to them. In evaluating the response to these disasters we need to concentrate on responsibility. Let’s not blame Michael Brown for failures that occured elsewhere.”
—Think Progress offers links that it says prove falsehoods in Brown’s sworn testimony.
—The Strata-Sphere in a post titled “Three Cheers For Michael Brown” says Brown did well and makes the case for him in a post that should be run in full. A key line:”BTW, the FEMA response to Katrina was the best response in history. It moved more material, to more places, quicker than at any time prior. That was Michael Brown’s responsibility.”
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.