The top three officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency share at least one trait: they had little or no experience in disaster management before landing top FEMA posts.
According to a Sept. 7 Chicago Tribune story, FEMA Director Michael Brown was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management.
Brown was removed earlier today as head of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
An official biography of Brown's top aide, acting deputy director Patrick Rhode, doesn't list any disaster relief experience.
The department's No. 3 official, acting deputy chief of staff Brooks Altshuler, also does not have emergency management experience, FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule told the Tribune.
Rhode and Altshuler each worked in the White House's Office of National Advance Operations, which arranges the president's travel and scripts his appearances.
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The credentials of top FEMA managers stand in contrast to the backgrounds of leaders of the agency during the Clinton administration.
Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt headed the Arkansas office of emergency services before he was tapped by Clinton in 1993 to run the federal disaster relief agency.
Witt's top aides in 2000, Lynn Canton and Michael Armstrong, both ran regional FEMA offices for at least three years before assuming senior positions with the agency in Washington.
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The question that no one is asking, of course, is why isn't the Bush Administration getting any heat for putting together a FEMA team so lacking in experience? Why isn't anyone criticizing the administration — and his Republican-led Congress — for allowing a FEMA leadership that screams "party before country."
Maybe because officially, the Bush Administration doesn't think FEMA has done a bad job.
Brown's boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, said today in discussing Brown's removal from the Katrina response: "Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge. I appreciate his work, as does everybody here."
And JABBS agrees. Mike Brown did do "everything he possibly could." He was so woefully unprepared for the task at hand, so badly overmatched by the realities of Hurricane Katrina, that "everything he possibly could" do was not very good.
You know Brown will disappear from the public eye for a while, then get a cushy job with some Washington think tank or corporate friend of Bush/Cheney.
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This article first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.
Article comments
1 - Floris Vermeir
It is a question one can indeed ask. It makes you wonder if there should not be put rules in part to prevent political placements, or putting friends in top place like that from happening again.
I presume it won't have been the first time something like that happens. It makes you wonder if there are any other posts were the same happened ? And if it could be used as a measure to find out how good a governement is doing.
He did his best, but as you say in the current situation, that wasn't good enough. Part of the responsibility lays with the person(s) who put Brown in place there. And now he's treated as the proverbial black sheep and all the blames is put on his head, while thats not like it really is.
2 - Rich
David,
Is Bush qualified to do his job, much less appoint cronies?
What is strange and unsettling is blind partisans who support Bush no matter what he manages to bungle.
3 - marc
This not a defense of Brown, I would have fired him after the tone deafness shown in sone of his comments made last week.
But, I find it odd that he went through 4 major hurricains last year, all within six weeks, and he received nothing but praise. The only blot on his record then was the awarding of millions of dollars in aid to Dade County in Fla when that area was barely touched by any of the storms. And that has bee a reoccuring problem with FEMA since it's inception.
4 - Dave Nalle
It's not necessarily Brown. It sounds to me like FEMA management has problems all down the line.
Case in point this idea of giving out $2000 debit cards to some evacuees and not others. They're giving them out sort of at random while other folks are getting checks in the mail or transfers to their bank accounts. And they're giving them to refugees in some cities and not in others. It's turning into a big mess. You shouldn't promise a cash handout to people in dire straits and then follow through capriciously.
Dave
5 - marc
I agree Dave and you'll note they have stopped handing out the debit cards.
As yet I have not heard anyone give a valid reason why the cards themselves "caused confusion" as some talking heads have noted.
On the surface it sounds like a good idea. but obviously the execution left something to be desired.