Category: Politics

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.

The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.

Source: the Boston Herald. I’m sitting here shaking my head. That’s just … wow. I mean, WOW. Exactly how is this man even remotely qualified to run FEMA?

It gets better.

Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.

“We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. “This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,” she added.

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.

Now, the calibre of the political appointees to a government agency do not necessarily reflect on the calibre of the agency’s staff, but it does have an impact in terms of the ability to keep key members of that staff, as well as in policies, priorities, and planning. We’re seeing that impact played out in excruciating detail this week on the Gulf Coast.

This guy need to be fired.

There’s a lot being said in the blogosphere right now. There’s a lot of anger, frustration, grief, and pain. But Ezra wrote something this morning that I particularly like. I’m quoting the majority of it here:

George W. Bush is not up to the task of leadership. That’s not said as a criticism, actually — I am not up to the task of dancing, or running marathons. We all have failings, and Bush’s essential flaw is an inability to project himself, an inability to grow in dimension during a crisis, an inability to sense that catastrophes serve as opportunities for strengthening the American community. I dislike Bush for mean-spiritedness, for his incompetence, for his smugness. But I deplore him for his smallness. That the 2004 election was a 51-49 affair is shocking. Had John McCain won in 2000, his response to 9/11 would have toasted the Democratic party for the next 20 years. Had Al Gore been in office, his leadership in the moments after would’ve changed the world, or at least the international community. Both of them would have brought Americans together. But Bush simply invited us to malls, wedged us apart, snookered us into a disastrous war that didn’t need to be fought. For a President to hold office during a crisis of that magnitude and do as little, both socially and politically, as Bush did is almost unprecedented.

I don’t blame Bush for Katrina — he does not control the weather. And I don’t blame him for the levees — even with full-funding, they weren’t scheduled to be completed for years, the levee that broke was actually one of the renovated ones, and so on; his funding decisions were criminal, but they would only have been causal five years from now. I blame him for the national guard being absent, but that’s a secondary problem. What I blame him for, what I hate him for, is for not stepping up to the job of President right now. For being a small man when a big one is required. For offering a laundry list of supplies-on-the-way when his job is uniting the American people and helping them give aid and comfort to their countrymen. A President can’t stop a disaster, but he can coalesce the citizenry to ease its aftermath, he can take catastrophe and use it to reknit the nation’s community.

Bush didn’t. He didn’t do it here and he didn’t do it on 9/11. In America, great things can come out of great calamity. Bush has had two opportunities to create something lasting, he has failed both times. For most else, I forgive him. For that, I never will.

No sooner do I put up a faintly hopeful post about things today than Atrios pointed me to something else that turned my mood right back around.

I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled. I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.

WTF?!?!

[rant mode = on]
I hope Reuel Marc Gerecht never, ever gets laid again for his insane supposition that it’s OK to disenfranchise Iraqi women at the cost of some 1,800 American lives and god knows how many more wounded. What kind of a delusional sexist jerkoff thinks that’s a good thing? What an egregious overprivileged f*cktard!

AARRGGHH! It makes me want to knock heads together.
[end rant]

For more substance and less ranting, go read what Digby has to say about this. I’m too annoyed.

Initially, when I read this, I was a bit annoyed. “He’s only getting coverage for criticizing the war because he is a Republican,” I though. But upon further reflection, I’m glad it’s in the news. If even mainstream Republicans are ready to openly criticize our involvement in Iraq, that’s a net positive.

Digby offers the following, very fascinating, suggestion:

I’ve been thinking for a while that we might be seeing the beginning of a new trend in American politics — the anti-military right. Rush is calling marines “pukes,” veterans are being called cowards and fakers, disabled vets are mocked for not having the right wounds or getting them in the right way, GOP hags are wearing cute little “purple heart” bandaids on their cheeks. People are selling busts of the president using his lack of combat experience as a selling point saying outright that physical courage is no longer particularly worthy of conservative approbation. Being a veteran buys you no credibility and no respect in today’s Real Murika.

This is how they transform Chickenhawkery into a badge of courage.

I suspect that what we are hearing (aside from the self-loathing fidgeting of those who loudly beat wardrums yet are too selfish to serve) is the distant rumblings of a massive rightwing frustration with the military’s inability to just “win” this damned thing so we can move on to our next country. It was supposed to be a cakewalk.

UPDATE: Thinking some more about it this morning, I wonder whether a “we got stabbed in the back by our own military” right-wing meme couldn’t emerge out of this line of thinking. Sadly, they’ll probably find some way to blame this on Bill Clinton or at least “the liberals” instead.