Progressive Talking Points 9/28/05

Trying to Shift Blame

Displaying an extraordinary lack of humility, former FEMA Director Michael Brown appeared yesterday before a special congressional panel looking into the response to Hurricane Katrina. Brown gave a "fiery appearance" that attempted to shift blame away from the federal government. Unfortunately, Brown left the facts at the hearing room door and engaged in revisionist history. Overall, his testimony illustrated not just that he was an incompetent administrator, but that President Bush failed the nation by putting a crony into place instead of someone who was qualified to run FEMA.

• Mike Brown contradicted himself repeatedly during his testimony. During his testimony yesterday, Brown stated that FEMA was overstretched, yet in 2004 he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that FEMA was absolutely ready to handle hurricanes hitting Florida. Brown also said yesterday that “FEMA doesn’t evacuate communities.” But in the midst of the hurricane aftermath, Brown said on CNN that FEMA was conducting "rescue missions" and would "continue to evacuate all of the hospitals." Brown also lied when he accused Louisiana Governor Blanco of not issuing an emergency assistance declaration for Orleans Parish, which includes New Orleans. The reality is that Blanco's emergency declaration on August 27 applied to all "affected areas" in "southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area."
• Mike Brown never should have headed FEMA to begin with. Despite being defensive about his credentials, Brown actually confirmed that much of his disaster preparedness experience came while he was an intern in undergraduate school, and as an assistant to the city manager, not the "Assistant City Manager" he claimed to be on his official biography on FEMA's website. And Brown again became defensive when Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) said that he didn’t do enough, asking, "What would you like for me to do, Congressman?” Brown should have simply followed the order President Bush issued on August 27^th that authorized FEMA to "identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency ."

We need to ensure that there are no more “Mike Browns” out there. While as head of FEMA Mike Brown deserves a lot of the blame for the Katrina response, the rest of the administration is not off the hook, as they were the ones who put him in charge in the first place. This entire episode underscores the importance of having competent people in positions of power and running federal agencies. To that end Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) have introduced legislation that will end the cronyism that runs rampant throughout the Bush administration and demands that only qualified individuals be allowed to lead agencies.