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Former FEMA hack Michael D. "Heck of a job" Brown reveals yet more dirt that many suspected: A chance to screw over Democrats was a higher priority in Bushco's Katrina response than was saving American lives. Brown: Party politics played role in Katrina response. Nice to have this on the record, but as I've said before, sorry Brownie, you still don't get to pull your reputation out of the toilet, because you went along with this when it was actually killing your countrymen.

Speaking of people who failed to stand up to BushCo when it mattered most, Bob Harris argues that Hillary's full support for Bush's invasion of Iraq makes her unelectable.

In local news, as a non sports fan, I have to say: Go Saints! Go capture that supurb owl, or whatever it is you do. Rah.
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Monday I had leftover MRE stuff for breakfast before doing a commemorative radio show.

Yesterday Ms. Hollie and I had lunch at Specialty Italian Restaurant (formerly Specialty Pizza), an early reopener that was the first place we ate when we got back to town at the start of October.

On PBS a nice hour long doccumentary "American Creole: Return to New Orleans" on local musician Papa Don Vappie, his family, and musical collegues in New Orleans post-K. Check it out if you get a chance.

----

One year post-K, Brownie admits he and the administration had no damn idea what the hell they were doing.

"There was no plan."

He admits he was trying to cover the administration's ugly rears rather help our citizens in need.

He correctly notes the administration threw him out as a scapegoat. He incorrectly still claims he was qualified to head FEMA (!), showing continued self delusion.

No, Brownie. You have indeed been made a scapegoat, but that doesn't mean you're not still an incompetent twit and a general waste of organic molecules.

It's just that your bosses aren't any better.
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So, is Michael D. Brown, former FEMA head, the most incompetent Bush appointee ever, or is the whole administration pretty much of this caliber, but extrodinary circumstances just made it clear in Brownie's case?

Katrina resulted in disaster scenarios that should have been in the contingency plans of officials at levels of government from local to Federal. They all seemed to have gambled "but not on my watch". They lost, and so did we.

That aside, what the hell was the Bush Administration doing putting this clueless narcisist, who was clearly in over his head at his previous job as a commissioner of the Arabian horse breeder's association, as head of FEMA? Surely, they knew SOME sort of natural disaster &/or a terrorist attack was likely to occur sooner or later.

What do folks think was going on here?

Were the Bushies setting themselves up for failure? If so, why? (To teach people not to rely on the government or something? To create a situation where more federal government funding/power will be demanded?) Or did they know that so much was underfunded and disorganized that they knew that Federal responce to whatever disaster came along was bound to be a compounding disaster, and they set Brownie up as a convenient patsy to take the fall for it? Or were they really so delusional as to think that Brownie and FEMA were up for whatever came along?

The BushCo (Cheney, Rove & Rumsfeld, CEOs) administration: Evil conspiracy and astounding incompetence are BOTH in their m.o. and are perfectly plausible explanations for their actions. Sometimes I can't tell which it is in a particular case.
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"WASHINGTON (AP): The government's disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region – and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.

"Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims."

(AP story via WWL)

Note that in '69, President Nixon mobilized the National Guard BEFORE Hurricane Camile actually hit.
And the country had the Vietnam War going on at the same time.

Also, a UPI story of Nagin's latest evacuation order entitles it "Roust begins of New Orleans squatters"

How does one become deemed a "squatter" in one's own home?

I HOPE the order is designed to give law officers the power to force evacuation of criminals and it will be very selectively used, rather than to force people from their homes who are actually set with enough supplies as emergency planners long told them to be.

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