Originally posted by: conjur
They knew on Thursday:
Originally posted by: conjur
I was listening to that on the way home from work the other day...shaking my head in disbelief at the disconnection from reality in this administration.
Originally posted by: Deudalus
Originally posted by: conjur
I was listening to that on the way home from work the other day...shaking my head in disbelief at the disconnection from reality in this administration.
I have a simple question, bear in mind this isn't a defense of anyone or anything. It is simply a question.
At what point in your minds is something Bush's fault or not his fault. I mean, for most of the guys who defend him no matter what you would have to literally catch him doing something personally or they will defend him.
However, people like you will blame Bush for just about anything making little punchlines such as the quote I listed all the time.
So I ask you being one of his biggest critics, if a swallow farts in the Rose Garden is Bush to blame?
Do you think Bush is so hands on that he controls every action of FEMA?
Do you think he was directly involved in the planning of where and when FEMA would do what?
If you will admit that Bush didn't create this hurricane nor did he directly plan FEMA's actions after the storm, how can Bush be blamed for these problems?
I mean, a critique on the Iraq war for something Bush wasn't directly involved in is understandable because Bush is the reason we are in Iraq. But to take that same frame of mind for this hurricane is petty and seems more like blind bias and tin-foil hat type conspiracy theory thinking that belongs on democraticunderground.com rather than here.
Originally posted by: db
...until Thursday night, Sept 1
Link
That's Michael Brown, the country-club Arabian horse
enthusiast who is now head of FEMA. Fortunately for him, he's a Republican, so will probably
keep his job.
Originally posted by: dahunan
WHO IN THE HELL HIRED THIS GUY -- He is not QUALIFIED -- IS HE?
Originally posted by: Zedtom
Do political appointee's have any sort of pre-employment coaching, or are they immediately qualified?
I used to be amused, now I'm just disgusted.
Originally posted by: Deudalus
Originally posted by: conjur
I was listening to that on the way home from work the other day...shaking my head in disbelief at the disconnection from reality in this administration.
I have a simple question, bear in mind this isn't a defense of anyone or anything. It is simply a question.
At what point in your minds is something Bush's fault or not his fault. I mean, for most of the guys who defend him no matter what you would have to literally catch him doing something personally or they will defend him.
However, people like you will blame Bush for just about anything making little punchlines such as the quote I listed all the time.
So I ask you being one of his biggest critics, if a swallow farts in the Rose Garden is Bush to blame?
Do you think Bush is so hands on that he controls every action of FEMA?
Do you think he was directly involved in the planning of where and when FEMA would do what?
If you will admit that Bush didn't create this hurricane nor did he directly plan FEMA's actions after the storm, how can Bush be blamed for these problems?
I mean, a critique on the Iraq war for something Bush wasn't directly involved in is understandable because Bush is the reason we are in Iraq. But to take that same frame of mind for this hurricane is petty and seems more like blind bias and tin-foil hat type conspiracy theory thinking that belongs on democraticunderground.com rather than here.
Originally posted by: Deudalus
Originally posted by: conjur
I was listening to that on the way home from work the other day...shaking my head in disbelief at the disconnection from reality in this administration.
I have a simple question, bear in mind this isn't a defense of anyone or anything. It is simply a question.
At what point in your minds is something Bush's fault or not his fault. I mean, for most of the guys who defend him no matter what you would have to literally catch him doing something personally or they will defend him.
However, people like you will blame Bush for just about anything making little punchlines such as the quote I listed all the time.
So I ask you being one of his biggest critics, if a swallow farts in the Rose Garden is Bush to blame?
Do you think Bush is so hands on that he controls every action of FEMA?
Do you think he was directly involved in the planning of where and when FEMA would do what?
If you will admit that Bush didn't create this hurricane nor did he directly plan FEMA's actions after the storm, how can Bush be blamed for these problems?
I mean, a critique on the Iraq war for something Bush wasn't directly involved in is understandable because Bush is the reason we are in Iraq. But to take that same frame of mind for this hurricane is petty and seems more like blind bias and tin-foil hat type conspiracy theory thinking that belongs on democraticunderground.com rather than here.
Originally posted by: Phokus
Originally posted by: dahunan
WHO IN THE HELL HIRED THIS GUY -- He is not QUALIFIED -- IS HE?
Lets see, he's a lawyer by training, he got fired from his last job as some commissioner for horse judges or something, but the important thing was that he was a GOP activist therefor an obedient bush lackey. That's all that matters :|
So who is Michael Brown, now catching all kinds of criticism for his handling of the catastrophe in New Orleans? It seems his primary career experience before nabbing a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) post was running an Arabian horse association. An article by Matt Stearns and Seth Borenstein for Knight Ridder Newspapers observes, "there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina."
The reporters quote Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade
emergency management chief: "He's done a hell of a job, because I'm not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm. The world that this man operated in and
the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience."
During the 1990s, Brown served as judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. His job was to ensure that horse-show judges followed the rules and to investigate allegations against those suspected of cheating. "I wouldn't have regarded his position in the horse industry as a platform to where he is now," said Tom Connelly, a former association president. The reporters refer to Brown's stormy years with the horses as a "rocky tenure."
But Brown knew Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000
campaign manager. Allbaugh took over FEMA in 2001, and hired Brown as general counsel.
Fvcking cop-out excuse for this inept bastard who only got the job because he was a college roommate of the Propagandist's chief of staff during his time as Gov. of Texas.For the decade prior to joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Director Michael Brown was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, a Colorado-based group that organizes breeders and horse shows. Then he was asked to resign.
"He didn't follow the instructions he was given," then-IAHA President William Pennington confirmed Saturday.
Less than five years after that dismissal, Brown, 50, finds himself heading the federal agency charged with responding to one of the nation's worst disasters.
Brown has been one of the leading public faces of a federal response sharply criticized as too little and too late. His statements and sometimes even his demeanor under the camera's glare have been questioned by critics--and often divergent from the grief-stricken reality on the ground.
During one of his first televised news conferences Wednesday, when violence and chaos were spreading in New Orleans and bodies were beginning to be seen floating in the water, Brown laughed and joked as he took reporters' questions.
At points last week, he described security in New Orleans as "pretty darn good." He said he had received no reports of "unrest," nor any information about uncollected corpses. And on Thursday night, he told CNN the agency had just learned that thousands of people had huddled at the New Orleans Convention Center, even though the city had directed them to go there, and journalists had been reporting their plight.
The frustrated New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin, lashed out last week, saying federal officials "don't have a clue" what was going on in his city. And the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, was quoted in The New York Times as calling on President Bush to fire Brown.
Seeking her own expert, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Saturday hired James Lee Witt, the widely praised FEMA director under President Bill Clinton, to advise her.
Still, even though Bush has called the federal response to the disaster "not acceptable," he praised Brown Friday during a tour of Alabama, saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the AP reported.
"He's done an enormously good job considering what happened," said Ronald Castleman, former director for FEMA in the region that includes New Orleans. "I think the scale of this is just far beyond anything FEMA was able to prepare for."
Two FEMA representatives, asked to comment Saturday, did not return phone calls.
Brown was born in Guymon, Okla., and received a bachelor's degree from Central State University and a law degree from Oklahoma City University. During the mid-1970s he oversaw emergency services in the central Oklahoma city of Edmond. In the 1980s he practiced law in Oklahoma and Colorado, joining the horse association in 1991.
In 2001, then-FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh, who had served as Bush's chief of staff when he was Texas governor and campaign manager for his first gubernatorial and 2000 presidential campaigns, tapped Brown to become the agency general counsel and deputy director. When Allbaugh stepped down in 2003, Brown was promoted.
"While he hasn't had 30 years of experience, that's true, he's had three or four of the most intense years that agency has ever seen," Castleman said.
FEMA's typical role in a disaster is to augment local and state response, but in a case this big the federal agency takes over. Still, Robert Deyle, a Florida State University urban and regional planning professor, said a lot of the blame pointed at the agency in the Katrina catastrophe has been "misplaced." State and local authorities also deserve some scrutiny.
"The reason he didn't know [about people in the convention center] is the people in Louisiana weren't telling him that," Deyle said. "It's not his job to be the first person on the scene."
Originally posted by: dahunan
When a Fcking disaster is this god damned big then it is FEMA's responsibility to BE THE FIRST ON THE SCENE.. OBVIOUSLY...
I have a simple question, bear in mind this isn't a defense of anyone or anything. It is simply a question.
At what point in your minds is something Bush's fault or not his fault. I mean, for most of the guys who defend him no matter what you would have to literally catch him doing something personally or they will defend him.
Originally posted by: Deudalus
Originally posted by: conjur
I was listening to that on the way home from work the other day...shaking my head in disbelief at the disconnection from reality in this administration.
I have a simple question, bear in mind this isn't a defense of anyone or anything. It is simply a question.
At what point in your minds is something Bush's fault or not his fault. I mean, for most of the guys who defend him no matter what you would have to literally catch him doing something personally or they will defend him.
However, people like you will blame Bush for just about anything making little punchlines such as the quote I listed all the time.
So I ask you being one of his biggest critics, if a swallow farts in the Rose Garden is Bush to blame?
Do you think Bush is so hands on that he controls every action of FEMA?
Do you think he was directly involved in the planning of where and when FEMA would do what?
If you will admit that Bush didn't create this hurricane nor did he directly plan FEMA's actions after the storm, how can Bush be blamed for these problems?
I mean, a critique on the Iraq war for something Bush wasn't directly involved in is understandable because Bush is the reason we are in Iraq. But to take that same frame of mind for this hurricane is petty and seems more like blind bias and tin-foil hat type conspiracy theory thinking that belongs on democraticunderground.com rather than here.