Replies

So you agree with me that local preparedness and the lack of it were the primary contributors of delays and incompetence in the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and that Brown cannot be held responsible for the local failures that impeded his departments response.

Focusing on his credentials is irrelevant because he held the job and did a competent job... a better job than his Clinton appointed predecessors. This record vindicates the fact that Bush knew what he was doing when he appointed Brown to the post.

I do agree that cronyism is a problem and that there are infinitely more qualified persons in the world who have the resumés and the experience to take the job and hit the ground running. I don't dispute that. But the purpose of the positions is to provide the president with the power to enact his policy across the board in every department through his appointees.

We saw the effects of what happens when you have bad policies when we look at how Clinton's appointees implemented a lot of questionable, irrelevant political correctness in the CIA, FBI, and the Pentagon. They implemented the policies of the sitting President. Poor policies, regardless of the competency of the leadership, leads to dysfunctional organizations. In recent history we can see how the poor disaster preparedness policies of Governor Blanco (LA) led directly to a dysfunctional local response to the disaster. Regardless of whether or not Blanco had been a competent leader, her policies were contradictory to proper preparation, and her incompetence came through when it came to admitting she had made an error. She made sure that the Federal response was unable to respond properly because she controlled the information and the power to restrict the Federal governments involvement.

Former FEMA director Brown was never the problem, and his track record, when compared to others who have held the post, was exemplary. Blaming him because he didn't have the "background" or "experience" is an irrelevant point that only had relevancy when he was appointed to the post, not several years after he's done a good job. It is time to give Brown a certificate that says he now has the experience and the background to work in disaster response management, not to denigrate a man who served this country in a capacity that many of us never will.