Saturday, September 10, 2005

Post-Katrina: Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job

So, the Bush team has pulled out Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Brown has been, as they say in Washingtonese, 'recalled to Washington'.
So who's now heading FEMA? The Chief of Staff is a guy named Patrick Rhode. He planned events for President Bush’s campaign. Rhode has no emergency management experience whatsoever. The Deputy Chief of Staff? That's Scott Morris. He was a press flak for Bush’s presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush’s campaign commercials. He also has no emergency management experience.
Much has already been written about Bush's manner of appointing people to positions of power and authority (payback for political or financial support, cronyism, nepotism, etc) so no point in going over that.
Instead, it might be worthwhile looking at the official transcript of Brown's official nomination and confirmation by a Senate committee. The committee was chaired by Senator Joe Lieberman (Ct, Democrat). For (pdf) file click here.

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