Posted on 11/03/2005 10:23:51 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Brown Discussed Wardrobe During Katrina
34 minutes ago
Newly-released e-mails show former FEMA director Michael Brown discussing his wardrobe during the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.
A House panel has released 23 pages of internal e-mail offering additional evidence of a confused and distracted government response to Katrina, particularly from Brown, the former head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, at critical moments after the storm hit.
The e-mails show that Brown, who had been planning to step down from his post when the storm hit, was preoccupied with his image on television even as one of the first FEMA officials to arrive in New Orleans, Marty Bahamonde, was reporting a crisis situation of increasing chaos to FEMA officials.
"My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous — and I'm not talking the makeup," writes Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs to Brown on 7:10 a.m. local time on Aug. 29.
"I got it at Nordstroms," Brown writes back. "Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?" An hour later, Brown adds: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."
A week later, Brown's aide, Sharon Worthy, reminds him to pay heed to his image on TV.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Actually, I'd expect that it is when things are at their worst that gallows humor tends to fly the most.
It is really a cheap shot to release these emails.
Were they sent from his private email or work email account ... if it was from his government email account, then the emails don't belong to him, they belong to we the tax-payer...
In which case I'm pretty pissed that my tax money goes to pay someone to discuss their wardrobe during a natural disaster.
This is a conservative board. You should be pissed too.
However, if the emails are from his private personal email account and we're sent outside of working time, nobody has any business busting this guys ass about this long after he is out of the organization. We all deserve some privacy or leniency.
There's nothing in these that is unethical, or illegal, or even all that unwise. It's just chat between colleagues when one of them has been on TV. If I were suddenly on national television, I wouldn't be surprised if some of my co-workers sent me some emails about my appearance, joking or otherwise. Big deal.
* * * *crickets* * * *
You know, this would be an excellent time to abolish FEMA, don't you think? It raises unreasonable expectations, and as we saw under clinton it is potentially very dangerous.
A federal bureaucracy that sits there doing nothing for a year and then is expected to go into action for a couple of weeks is a surefire recipe for bureaucratic failure. We have the National Guard. We have police, firemen, and medical personnel who can be loaned from neighboring communities. Why do we need FEMA?
Just reads thru it all -- most of them in in .gov, unfortunately.
Ugh, can't wait to get home and watch the MSM salivate all over this one...
As I understand it Mr. Brown is still on the Government pay roll as a Consultant.
Unfortunately, I think that many people on this board are all too will to give Mr. Brown a Pass because he has an R next to his name.
Could you imagine the Outrage here if a Clinton Appointee had done the same thing?
We would be looking at 2000+ posts.
You know what? I think you've hit the nail on the head. What I'm saying here may well get me knocked out of the post but I really like what Pat Buchanan has to say about the war on terror and the administration. I cannot just follow blindly any stupid story that is handed to me because the person is a Republican or says he is Conservative - sort of like Rush Limbaugh doing drugs and being divorced 3 times and then poking fun at Clinton who frankly I believe should have stepped down for disgracing the nation and the office of the President.
But what I don't get is these people who just repeatedly squak about "MSM" and stupid liberalism and how great the Bush admin is when frankly I think it has let true blue conservatives down. Why the f--- am I paying to rebuild Iraq? Those people like to live in squalor so let them figure out their type of democracy.
If the Iraqis are our enemy then we should turn the entire place into a pile of glass and quit trying to make friends and going into door to door close range combat and get out of there. If they are not our enemy, we shouldn't be there in the first place.
Frankly, while all of our boys are bleeding the desert red for us in Iraq, North Korea and China are building up their arsenals getting ready.
It was our messing around in the business of other countries to begin with the let guys like Saddam come to power. We funded Saddam and Osama in their wars against Iran and USSR when we frankly should have butted out.
But what really burns me is no one seems to have the spine to say that this admin (I don't want to yammer on about the Democrats because the bible - Psalms - says it best "Where there is no vision, the people perish" and these people have no vision) has wasted time and money fighting wars in Iraq and leaving our borders weakened here at home, and leaving our entire manufacturing capacity raped by the Chinese.
I mean why are we spending so much effort to make friends in Iraq (or enemies for that matter).
I was speaking to a chinese software developer friend of mine who tells me that they think the US is weak because they haven't been able to surpress a country that had been under sanctions for 12 years after being defeated in war and that has no sizeable weapons to boot.
The Republicans own the house and the executive and soon the judicial. They had better act like conservatives and worry about the home front first; win wars they enter into decisively quickly without pussy footing or don't fight at all.
Keep in mind that we entered WWII in 1942 and the war was over for us thanks to us in 1945.
Those of us who call ourselves conservative better start demanding better of those who are stewards of our tax money instead of just looking for the letter after someone's name and saying if it's R they're right if it's D their wrong.
Getting sick of the lack of critical thought to see who in government is really for conservatism and what policies further that aim. And just saying you hate gay marriage and abortion doesn't make you a conservative either.
Why the hell should I be happy that anything about the CIA
What am I missing. . .toilet paper? What?
Marge "See how it soaks up all the spilt milk. Spill something else"
Homer "I don't feel like spill.."
Marge: "SPILL SOMETHING ELSE!:
I believe we have the msm, all to ready, to make sure no one with an R next to their name gets away with anything. But if you need to pound on this guy also, knock yourself out.
Where do you work that your business e-mails are private?
In today's business world, people should be smart enough to know that work e-mail is for WORK. If my entire record of work email was published right here, there would be nothing embarassing on it , nor would there be any examples of utter incompetence for anyone to use, because I'm not incompetent, and I'm smart enough to know that my work e-mail is not private.
Not only was Brown obviously incompetent for this job, but he was so stupid that he sent these types of emails using his work account during one a major crisis. Heck, I'd fire someone just for being that stupid if they were in a critical leadership role.
Let's stop whitewashing this. Brown obviously had no idea what he was doing. Yes, there was plenty of incompetence on the local and state levels, but Brown utterly failed at his job, and deserved to be fired.
The real tragedy is that he is still on the payroll to the tune of $148,000 a year, to find out what he did wrong! UGH!
*smirk*
Good one!
I have certainly never been in a major leadership position and sent an e-mail that read, "Should I be doing anything?"
I draft every professional e-mail (i.e. every e-mail I send through my work account) as if it was going to be read on Fox News that night, and then Limbaugh the next morning.
Yah... so realistic. Nobody's wife emails in to ask for something to pick up on the way home. Nobody in the office ever emails around to find out who'd like to go out for beers on Friday. Never happens. What? You're left off those email lists? Why am I unsurprised...
If my entire record of work email was published right here, there would be nothing embarassing on it , nor would there be any examples of utter incompetence for anyone to use, because I'm not incompetent, and I'm smart enough to know that my work e-mail is not private.
Cool. So you don't ever use email. Got it.
Not only was Brown obviously incompetent for this job, but he was so stupid that he sent these types of emails using his work account during one a major crisis.
Obviously incompentent? Was that in 2004 too? Or in Mississippi or Alabama? Or was it just in new orleans.
Heck, I'd fire someone just for being that stupid if they were in a critical leadership role.
Must be fun to work there.
Let's stop whitewashing this. Brown obviously had no idea what he was doing. Yes, there was plenty of incompetence on the local and state levels, but Brown utterly failed at his job, and deserved to be fired.
He wasn't fired. He quit. He clearly had no idea what he was doing on those 164 events before new orleans was flushed. Obviously... since there was such an outcry over those... right?
The real tragedy is that he is still on the payroll to the tune of $148,000 a year, to find out what he did wrong! UGH!
Uh, no. He resigned.
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