Over the past week, I’ve watched Mike Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on television and been thoroughly unimpressed. That he wasn’t handling the situation in New Orleans well was clear. That he had no concept of the tragedy that was unfolding was apparent. If this is all it was, perhaps it could be excused as someone faced with a natural disaster worse than any that had hit the United States.
After reading this article in the Shreveport Times its clear that the man is an idiot or just plain incompetent.
“Saturday and Sunday, we thought it was a typical hurricane situation — not to say it wasn’t going to be bad, but that the water would drain away fairly quickly,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown said today. “Then the levees broke and (we had) this lawlessness. That almost stopped our efforts.”
And then in the today’s Washington Post
“I was here on Saturday and Sunday, it was my belief, I’m trying to think of a better word than typical — that minimizes, any hurricane is bad — but we had the standard hurricane coming in here, that we could move in immediately on Monday and start doing our kind of response-recovery effort,” he said. “Then the levees broke, and the levees went, you’ve seen it by the television coverage. That hampered our ability, made it even more complex.”
And Michelle Malkin catalogs what we’ve seen from Mr. Brown this week
- He admitted that he didn’t act more aggressively because as late as last Sunday he expected Katrina to be a “standard hurricane” even though the National Weather Service in New Orleans was already predicting “human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
- He proved himself utterly clueless about the disaster unfolding in New Orleans. He claimed that the federal relief effort was “going relatively well” and that the security situation in New Orleans was “pretty darn good.”
- He blamed the flood victims in New Orleans for failing to evacuate on time, even though local authorities failed to make municipal vehicles avalailable to residents who could not drive or did not own their own cars.
And what has President Bush said about all this ?
Toward the end of his comments in Mobile, President Bush added — almost as an afterthought — “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” noting that FEMA Director Brown is “working hard.”
Outrageous. Totally outrageous. The man has to be fired now, and someone who has proven he can actually handle something like this put in charge. My nomination ? Rudy Giuliani
Hat Tips to: Brendan Loy and Michelle Malkin
Update 9/6/05 @ 6:00pm: Welcome Andrew Sullivan readers. I’ve got more on the fate of Michael Brown here.
