Michael Brown
Dean
The more time goes on, the more convinced I am that former FEMA chief Michael Brown was scapegoated for New Orleans. He was no more a "crony appointment" than prior FEMA chiefs (including Clinton's FEMA chief), he handled past hurricanes just fine, and he went above and beyond on Katrina.
Not that it's tragic--sometimes in politics these things have to happen--but the more evidence I see, the more apparent it becomes that he was quite competent and did nothing fundamentally wrong. Goldstein has details.
My hope is that this will result in sensible reforms of disaster planning. Brown had to be the sacrificial lamb to make that happen. A shame but that's politics I guess.
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Brown was scapegoated, unfairly, by the media, but he was fired for the resume discrepancy.
James Lee Witt was director of Arkansas' Office of Emergency Services and had managed three presidential declarations of emergency, including two major floods. While he may have been a crony inasmuch as he was from Arkansas, he did come to the job with directly relevant experience.
Read the materials I linked, please.
As I say, scapegoating seems to serve a purpose. If it leads to reforms that are functional, then I guess it proves the system works. [shrug]
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The question becomes, should the FEMA director be watching CNN so closely during a crisis like this? Maybe, but I'm not inclined to say that should be his top priority with everything else he had going on. It seems steeped on the assumption that watching TV is the primary thing government officials should be doing during a crisis--or that they should have a flunkies whose sold job is to watch TV and take notes for them. Presidents have that, but should they all?
I definitely think the resume rather than performance was the cause of his early departure. I think Americans of all political stripes expect a FEMA chief to possess greater qualification for that office than Brown could claim. The White House did NOT want to have to defend that resume as front page news for weeks.
Very good way of putting it.
But if they actually LIKE the guy, it's cronyism.
Regarding the Superdome: FEMA gets it's info from state and local officials, not cable news.
I think that's true. But maybe that's something that needs to change.
I'm not talking blame here; I'm talking changes in technology. Yes, I know CNN can be unreliable; but information is still information. Today, the resources of major news organizations let them gather information that's freely available, adding to the pool of information from state and local officials.
I'll add to that: bloggers are also sources of free information.
Again, I know that this information may not always be as reliable as first-hand info from troops on the ground; but it may be available from places where troops haven't gotten yet, or it may see the story from other perspectives.
What I'm wondering is whether we maybe need some sort of Office of Disaster Intelligence -- inside FEMA, presumably -- that would keep an eye on Google News, Powerline News, network feeds, and major bloggers, looking for major stories. And then don't presume those stories are true, but use them to shape strategy of where to send the troops on the ground to learn more.
http://dailyhowler.com/dh091205.shtml
No, that would be a disaster - no news organization is actually going to get the emergency management people the information they need - how many people affected, where are they, what is available to get aid to them; what aid is available (today, tomorrow, next week)...
The problem with the news is that it only shows a very small snapshot of what is going on...what is even more wrong with television news is that the small snapshot it shows is usually just the most dramatic picture, which often has nothing to do with what is actually going on. On balance, if I were President, I'd forbid my staff - if at all possible - from watching any television news at all.
I suspected that Brown was being a bit scapegoated - and, of course, such is the natural course of events...what is really pathetic about it is that the end of his career is really entirely a matter of public perception...because he was painted as out of touch by the media, he was fired...
The lesson has been firmly learned by me - something I should have known for quite a long time - as Field Marshall Douglas Haig put it, "initial reports are never as bad, or as good, as the actual situation". Always and ever I shall await confirmation before rendering anything like a judgement.
"Regarding crony appointments in general: Rise via political favoritism, fall for political expediency. Comes with the territory."
Very true.
Name a Democrat since Truman who ever appointed anybody to anything on the basis of competence rather than favoritism.
Mark Noonan wrote:
"The problem with the news is that it only shows a very small snapshot of what is going on...what is even more wrong with television news is that the small snapshot it shows is usually just the most dramatic picture, which often has nothing to do with what is actually going on. On balance, if I were President, I'd forbid my staff - if at all possible - from watching any television news at all."
An excellent idea. And we would all do well to shut off the TV permanently, especially the lies they call "news".