09/09/2005
FEMA: What a Nightmare
UPDATE: Michael Chertoff announces that Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen is to replace Brown as principal Federal Officer with regards to Katrina efforts in the Gulf Coast, Brown to head back to Washington to stay on at FEMA. What a shady way for Bush to take the heat off while not having to accept responsibility.
Do you want Brown to continue to oversee "the big picture"? I don't.
Blistering new revelations are coming to light about incompetent FEMA director Michael Brown.
The most recent is this TIME magazine report that Brown's "emergency services" qualifications, light as they were already, were trumped up on his resume to make it appear that in his work for Edmond, Oklahoma's emergency services division he had authority over employees when in fact his job was more like that of a clerical intern.
On that same resume he also claimed he had won an "Outstanding Political Science Professor" award from Central State University when records show he was only a student there and not on the faculty.
FEMA is rife with cronyism. The Washington Post reports today:
"Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
Cronyism is nothing new in American politics as the lead editorial of today's New York Times points out:
"Political patronage has always been a hallmark of Washington life. But President Bill Clinton appointed political pals at FEMA who actually knew something about disaster management. The former FEMA director James Lee Witt, whose tenure is widely considered a major success, was a friend of Mr. Clinton's when he took office in 1993, but he had run the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. His top staff came from regional FEMA offices."
Unfortunately, "President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified cronies" at the expense of thousands who lost their lives in the Gulf Coast because the government does not know how to deal with disaster.
If you think this country is better prepared for a terrorist attack than before 9/11, look at what's happening in the Gulf Coast because the same team will be responding. When is someone going to be held accountable?
Do you want this man here when a new disaster comes calling? [tr]
Posted 12:28 PM EST by Andy Towle in Current Affairs | Permalink
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They won't be held accountable. What's the worst that could happen? They get fired? Oh, that'd be just terrible.
2006, folks. Vote for a Democrat with a spine or a Republican with a brain. They both exist...somewhere.
Posted by: david | Sep 9, 2005 12:38:56 PM
This is ridiculous!!!! Absolutely crazy!
Posted by: Roy | Sep 9, 2005 12:41:20 PM
It's Bush. Do you honestly think anyone will be held accoountable? The man has the most miserable record of cronyism and protectionism of any politician outside New Jersey. It's bad enough he basically gives Halliburton kickbacks, now we have to deal with his friend's son's counsin's brother in law running critcal national operations?
Posted by: MT | Sep 9, 2005 12:48:33 PM
Whoa! A lateral transfer! I bet he's just all tore up about that, too.
Posted by: david | Sep 9, 2005 1:22:11 PM
Early reports are just coming in now that Brown has been sent back to Washington (replaced?).
If true, so much for the recent cronyism and protectionism diatribe.
Posted by: Cassius | Sep 9, 2005 1:49:45 PM
He is being sent back to washington not being fired Cassius. I think the comments (aka diatribe) still stand. Even Colin Powell is critical. Face it everyone involved in this fucked up.
If all parties involved fouled up this bad for an event everyone knew a week in advance was going to happen just imagine how bad it will be with an unannounced attack.
Posted by: Donald | Sep 9, 2005 1:54:51 PM
Oh yes, that totally makes it okay. Of course, one would have hoped that the President (or some of the other people in his inner circle who are admittedly very very smart folks) would have had enough foresight to know that someone who's so clearly inappropriate for the job would be a bad choice to manage our disaster management agency. But whatever. Hopefully this will mean he's being fired, and not just brought back to Washington for a lateral move.
Political cronyism isn't a Republican phenomenon... it's most certainly bipartisan. But when it comes to agencies that we rely on for safety and oversight during times of national crisis, it seems clear that the crony should also be qualified to hold the job. By the President's initial logic, I should have applied for the Secretary of State position when Colin Powell left. That's my fault. I should've aimed higher.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 9, 2005 2:00:55 PM
"Face it everyone involved in this fucked up."
Thats actually what I've been saying here all along (with emphasis on the word "everyone").
My guess is that this is a prelude for Brown handing in a resignation. Too bad Blanco and Nagin won't be doing the honorable thing and resigning too.
Posted by: Cassius | Sep 9, 2005 2:16:36 PM
Wow! Now he's honorable for getting transferred! I guess they figure he's safe there...after all, it was just the EM part of FEMA he was unqualified for.
Posted by: david | Sep 9, 2005 2:28:21 PM
You know that Nagin was a Republican and just switched parties before running for mayor of New Orleans, right?
And that he opposed Blanco's run for governor and supported the Republican, right?
Not that it's really relevant...
Posted by: eric | Sep 9, 2005 2:32:11 PM
Blanco and Nagin were elected by the people not appointed because they were experts on emergency management. That is the big difference between them and Brown.
Once Bush declared the emergency most issues are taken out of the hands of local and state officials.
Did you know that FEMA turned away trucks from the Coast Guard full of fuel because the paper work clearing them as a security risk was not filed. Did you know that FEMA turned away supplies from Walmart and the government of Canada for the same reasons, did you know that there are 2,500 Pennsylvania national guardsmen sitting around out side New Orleans waiting for FEMA to find something to do with them, did you know that because the paperwork was not complete mobile homes were still sitting in Atlanta waiting to be deployed.
Sure Blanco and Nagin deserve a lot of blame but it is the federal goverments job to protect and defend and they have not done this.
Chertoff in announcing Brown moving back to DC said he was going to handle the big picture issues. Watch him get a medal of freedom award next year.
The actions of this administration is indefensible and no matter how much the finger is pointed elsewhere, a disaster of this magnitude are the provence of the federal govenment which is headed by George W. Bush... Make no mistake that if Al Gore were president the conservatives and the republican would be screaming for impeachment.
Posted by: Donald | Sep 9, 2005 2:47:56 PM
No, I did not know that, and yes, IMO its not really relevant. Interesting, but not relevant.
Posted by: Cassius | Sep 9, 2005 2:48:01 PM
Except that it might explain much of the friction that clearly went on between the governor and the mayor leading up to the hurricane.
Posted by: Mitch Cardwell | Sep 9, 2005 2:51:01 PM
You know I hear a lot of these picayune bureaucratic FEMA mistakes mentioned, this load of supplied held up, fuel not going here, trailers not going here. But did these supply, fuel and trailer delays cause deaths?
Can people here say for certain that ONE person died because they did not have a trailer-roof over their head?
Now. Mayor Nagin. Governor Blanco. Their duty was to enforce a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans BEFORE the storm hit. They failed. The direct result of their failure? THOUSANDS dead. DIRECT CORRELATION. Their screw-ups = DEATH.
Posted by: Cassius | Sep 9, 2005 2:57:38 PM
"I'm anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said,"
Brown said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Asked if the move was a demotion, Brown said: "No. No. I'm still the director of FEMA." "I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife and, maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims,"
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/09/D8CGTCCG0.html
To make any sense of this, you have to look back at Hurricane Andrew. For all the complaints and compliments, the fact is that the Homestead area is still not fully recovered, and disputes with insurance companies and FEMA are still unresolved.
In other words, you are on your own in any real disaster, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll stop waiting for assistance that may never arrive, and move on with getting your life back on track. Depending on anyone is risky. Depending on politicians or government workers is just silly.
Democrat or Republican, all politicians are first and foremost, self-serving. Their most important job is to raise money for their party, and/or for their own re-election. You can depend on them to tell the story that best fits their audience.
Posted by: jay | Sep 9, 2005 2:59:08 PM
George W. Bush Still Rocks!
Stop criticizing! The rich man's CEO president is executing his job requirements perfectly
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 9, 2005
Everyone is slamming poor Dubya. Everyone is saying, oh my God, he's more inept than we ever imagined, he has no idea what's really going on, he's oblivious and in denial and he pretty much let all those poor black people die in filth and misery, and he basically ignored the massive Katrina disaster for days before finally being pressured into cutting his umpteenth vacation short and actually taking action.
This is what they're saying. Kanye West was right, Bush doesn't care about black people, or the poor, or anything that doesn't directly serve his handlers' agenda or flatter his monochromatic ego or anything that isn't spelled out for him in nice simplistic pie charts and reassuring matronly tones.
And lo, the darts are slinging in from around the world, according to SF Gate's own World Views column: "Maddening incompetence ... reminiscent of a drought-stricken African state," says Britain's Daily Mail. "Can't get it together," says a major paper in Italy. "A plethora of grim tales of disaster," says the Scotsman. "Superpower or Third World?" asks the Spanish daily Noticias de Álava. Why did BushCo fail its first great national-security test since Sept. 11, despite having two days' advance notice of Katrina's wrath? asks Le Monde. And on it goes, the world's powers looking on in one part shock and one part disgust and all parts repugnance for Bush's rampant ineptitude and America's apparent inability to take care of its own.
But it's so unfair, isn't it, to attack poor Dubya like this? Just a little misplaced? After all, Bush has always been the rich white man's president. He is the CEO president, the megacorporate businessman's friend, the thug of the religious right, a big reservoir-tipped condom for all energy magnates, protecting against the nasty STDs of humanitarianism and progress and social responsibility.
He has always been merely an entirely selective figurehead, out of touch and eternally dumbfounded, a hand puppet of the neoconservative machine built and fluffed up and carefully placed for the very specific job of protecting their interests, no matter what. Repeat: No. Matter. What. Flood hurricane disaster war social breakdown economic collapse? Doesn't matter. Corporate interests über alles, baby. Protect the core, reassure the base, screw everyone else unless it begins to affect the poll numbers and then finger-point, deflect, prevaricate. All of a piece, really. Because Bush, he was never actually meant to, you know, lead.
So maybe it's time to stop with the savaging of poor Dubya. He is, after all, doing a simply beautiful job of kowtowing to his wealthiest supporters while slamming the poor and running the nation into a deep hole and creating the largest deficit in American history, all while his cronies in oil and industry and military supply and Big Energy gain immense and staggering wealth and pay less and less tax on it. This is what he was hired to do. This is why he is in office. Hell, the day after Katrina, Bush flew right by Louisiana and headed straight to San Diego to party with his Greatest Generation cronies. Reassure the masters, first and foremost, eh Shrub? Understood.
Is this not what we all expected? Can you reasonably say you thought it would be different? Just look. All major social services are being gutted. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a joke, second in line only to the ungodly useless Homeland Security Department, which has become about as reassuring and trustworthy and humane an organization as a prison in Guantánamo.
The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans just last year. The White House hacked that down to about $40 million, even as it passed the most bloated and nauseatingly pork-filled $12.3 billion energy bill in recent history, one that guaranteed we'd be sucking at the tit of foreign oil and kneeling before Bush's pals in Big Energy for decades to come, even as more and more teenagers die in Iraq for Bush's inept and failed war. Yay politics.
Why didn't National Guardsmen from Louisiana and Mississippi march into New Orleans immediately after Katrina exited to take charge and keep the peace? Why, because most of them are serving in that same violent and brutally costly war in Iraq, silly. Fully 30 percent of the guard is stuck over there, along with 50 percent of their equipment. Yay Vietnam 2.0.
Why did FEMA chief Michael Brown wait hours after Katrina struck to timidly plead with his parent company, Homeland Security, for some backup, not to actually get their hands dirty but rather to help "convey a positive image" about the government's response to the victims? Why, because he's an incompetent lackey Bush appointee who was fired from his former job as head of something called the International Arabian Horse Association. Yay pathetic nepotism.
Just look. Senate majority leader Sen. Bill Frist, icon of hollow self-righteousness and the energy magnate's friend, has already leveraged the Katrina nightmare to argue for more drilling in Alaska, much in the way BushCo whored Sept. 11 to cram the Patriot Act down the nation's throat and make fear and xenophobia a national pastime. And let's not forget trusty profit-sucking sidekick Halliburton, which has already scored a sweet deal to help repair Katrina damage, thanks to the fact that the former director of FEMA is now a Halliburton lobbyist. Ah, war and death and tragedy. They are just so goddamn profitable, right, Dubya?
And then, the kicker. Then you read that Bush has actually ordered an official probe into the botched Katrina relief efforts, a formal federal investigation into what went wrong, which is a bit like a shark ordering an investigation into what happened to all the fish. Unless this probe starts and ends in the White House, unless it hangs Bush himself up by his monkey ears and dangles him over a river of toxic Louisiana sewage, it's merely useless and insulting and more than a little sad.
Let's say it outright. The truest measure of any president, of any leader, is how well he takes care of his own people. And Bush, well, Bush has done a simply spectacular job of taking care of exactly his own people -- the wealthy, the corporate, the extreme religious right, his core base of supporters -- while happily and fiercely ignoring, restricting, condemning, destroying the rest. Are you educated or progressive or liberal or alternative-minded or sexually open or homosexual or anti-war? This means you. Are you dirt poor and belong to a minority and don't drive an SUV and contribute six figures per annum to the RNC and maybe live in a flooded swamp in the Louisiana bayou? This means you, squared. Sucker.
Here, then, is the new American motto, as reimagined by BushCo: Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and we'll let them die in a filthy and decrepit storm-ravaged American football stadium while our president languishes on vacation and ponders his oil futures and fondly remembers his good ol' days of getting drunk at Mardi Gras before going AWOL from the military. God bless America.
Posted by: Leland | Sep 9, 2005 3:36:37 PM
Ain't that the fuckin' truth?
Posted by: david | Sep 9, 2005 3:41:54 PM
Cassius
If I lived through this I am not sure I would call it picayune. Would it have prevented all the bad things? No. It it damn sure could have made life easier for some people. I am not about calling names like many folks do on this site but does being a libertarian mean compassion goes out the window. Which is why of course I hated Ayn Rand and the (well written) but dreadful Fountainhead
Posted by: Donald | Sep 9, 2005 4:29:19 PM
On the other hand, under Michael Brown's supervision, I understand not a single Arabian show horse was lost in the aftermath of Katrina. Which I suppose is important if he wants his old job back.
Bush is a moron. He is the dummy on Karl Rove's knee. If you were unelectable as a neocon or a wild-eyed evangelical, but wanted your agenda to go forward, wouldn't you look for a moron who was easily manipulated, wouldn't ask tough questions, and had name recognition? George Bush was and is the perfect front man.
Everyone should stop waiting for him to act like a leader. Ain't gonna happen. Ever.
Posted by: Ajar | Sep 9, 2005 4:37:56 PM
God I love Mark Morford. Reading his work helps me get rid of that "not so fresh feeling".
Awesome.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 9, 2005 4:38:49 PM
Cassius, you are a fuckin' scumbag, muther fuckin, elitist, asswipe, cumrag to say that no deaths resulted from the federal delays...Tell it to the families of the dead, and the orphans. Tell it to the old lady dead in the wheel chair, or the lady that called everyday from the nursing home and they told her every day that help was on the way, and then she drowned! In the shitty water. Tell me thats a good federal job, tell me that muther fuckin' scumbag, and you deserve the name callin' cuz you just stepped way outside any limits of civil decency in protecting your elitistm, racist, unfeeling piece of shit president. God, you are the lowest piece of shit I ever heard. You should be licking Rush Limbaughs speed filled balls.
Posted by: Jeff | Sep 9, 2005 4:56:17 PM
"As Democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts' desire, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
-H.L.Mencken, The Baltimore Sun 7/26/1920
Posted by: BAZ | Sep 9, 2005 5:00:34 PM
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." -- HL Mencken
Posted by: david | Sep 9, 2005 5:24:53 PM
Jeff,
Besides all those colorful insults (made you feel better, huh?) you just made a nice list of people in New Orleans who died because they were not evacuated before the storm hit by Democrats.
LOL! I can't believe this. I just got up from a nap. I expected to see at least ONE person here find a FEMA mistake which could be tied directly to a death.
But noooo!
OK here the deal. I'm gonna make dinner, walk my dog, do some work, and then come back. Lets see if you lefties can find one FEMA mistake, JUST ONE, where the cause and effect leads inoxerably to just ONE corpus delecti.
C'mon now, you have the entire liberal blogosphere pumping out FEMA mistakes...surely there is ONE mistake that was actually a deadly one out there.
Or was there?
Note that most all of the THOUSANDS of New Orleans deaths are off limits to you guys; the failure of locals officials to evacuate those victims when the means and opportunity and ORDER to do so squarely puts those deaths out of FEMA's area of responsibility.
C'mon just one FEMA death...take the Cassius Challenge!
Posted by: Cassius | Sep 9, 2005 7:12:19 PM
In 2004, a study predicting excactly the results we have seen in New Orleans was handed over to FEMA. In Dec of 2004, Brown pronounced the required ammendments to the levee system as too expensive to consider.
It doesn't excuse the fuckups of the Governor and the Mayor, but it certainly sets the groundwork for the flooding that should not have happened.
I'd say it gives FEMA 1/2 credit.
Posted by: jay | Sep 9, 2005 8:58:56 PM