Law Professor Paul Campos has a piece on Mike Brown’s background at the New Republic online (registration required) prior to his hire at FEMA. It is not a flattering read.
While it is overly simplistic to reduce FEMA’s performance (which, I will grant, the final evaluation of which has yet to be written) to an issue of its head, however, the more I read about Mike Brown’s qualifications the more I really do call into serious question what Bush was thinking when he named Brown to a prominent role in the agency in the first place, and especially so as to how/why he became director.
And yes, I realize that he has been in the job during a number of disasters, and I will acknowledge that there has been an overly-simplistic piling-on on FEMA in the last week. Still, it does seem clear that FEMA has had its share of bungles in the current response, and it is clear to me that at this time of historic disaster, that it would have been better to have someone with serious crisis management abilities and experience in control of FEMA.
Visionary leadership is needed at times of great crisis, but may not be needed when more run-of-the-mill problems emerge. The hurricanes in Florida of late, though devastating at times, where not unlike hurricanes from the past. As such a visionary or even extraordinary competence in FEMA leadership was not required. The unprecedented nature of the New Orleans disaster, however, needed something beyond the normal and it doesn’t seem as if we received that, nor does it seem as if Brown was a likely candidate to have possessed such abilities in the first place.
This is doubly significant, given that FEMA is on the forefront of response to terrorist attacks as well.
Perhaps I am placing too much emphasis on resume, but really, there is something very, very troubling that someone with Brown’s background rose to the position that he currently holds.
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September 8th, 2005 at 10:59 pm
if “brownie” is so dang unqualified, then why was brown overwhlemingly confirmed by the senate when it was controlled by the dems?
FEMA is a management agency which must get cooperation if it’s to be able to cut through the layers of local and state government during an emergency. it has no assets of its own; it’s a management service that can marshall in and manage vast national reservoirs of aid into counties and cities and states.
brown had a lot of legal background in the relationships between local, state and federal governments/bureaucracies before he got the FEMA job. it’s one reason he was nominated and confirmed.
ALSO: it’s easy in hindsight to say that last year’s FLORIDA hurricane season was un-extraordinary; IOW: it sure looks that way now. but ti was the worst hurricane season florida had ever had - except fore andrew. but the very fact that aid flowed in there so smoothly proves brown is NOT a total incompetent. he ran FEMA then, and NO ONE COMPLAINED. not once.
also keep this in mind: brown has done NO FINGER-POINTING. zero.
blanco and landrieu and nagin have done A LOT OF FINGER-POINTING.
to me, this is a sure sign that they feel guilty.
and are.
blanco seems to be the most culpable to me.
the most horrifying images of katrina will always be the helpless crowds at the superdome and the convention center.
now, it seems tru that ALL of their suffering was the result of balnco’s BAD DECISION-MAKING.
sure: they should have and could have been eveacuated with those buses.
but even AFTER that, they could have been fed and gioven water IF BALNCO HAD ONLY LET THE RED CROSS IN!
for the dems/left - ANYONE - to blame FEMA or brown of Bush is LUDICROUS.
IMHO.
also: let’s never forget the DEVASTATING losses suffered by the people on the gulf coast. they were wiped out by the storm surge. they had a lot, and lost everything.
God help us all.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Katrina: FEMA Director Mike Brown’s Resume
TIME magazine asks, “How Reliable Is Brown’s Resume?” Apparently, not very.
Most notably, his online bio claims a stint as “an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight” when, in reality, he was an assis…