Brownie
Posted on August 29th, 2006 by Brad
So I’m watching Brownie on Hardball right now, and it is not pretty.
I almost- ALMOST– feel sorry for the guy. He should be held up as an example to all other prospective Bush hacks. Because while it may feel good to accept a job you’re completely unqualified for, it could ruin the rest of your life- and the lives of many others- should disaster strike.
Gavin adds: Hey man, they’ve been telling me that since that disastrous Christmas Eve at Toys ‘R’ Us all those years ago. And yet, I feel I’m finding my level.
Looks like dick Armitage is being thrown under the bus to save Rove and Cheney, too.
They’re gonna need to throw a bus under that bus to have a chance.
No excuses for Brown’s performance, but the focus on him helped Chertoff escape the heat he deserved.
I have a hard time blaming brownie. As far as I’m concerned, his only transgression was believing that somehow he belonged in that position. What he should have done was get some experienced, qualified people in place, make sure they were well paid and get out of the way. Other than that, he accepted a position thru political patronage, and he had every right to do that. If only he had understood how he got there.
As to Armitage, he’s a traitor just like rove. How can they talk about Iran and nukes when THEY are the ones that took one of our pieces off the board? You just can’t have it both ways, and here’s one we can talk about right up to ’08…
mikeey
What he should have done was get some experienced, qualified people in place, make sure they were well paid and get out of the way. Other than that,…
Yeah, other than that…
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Um…Brad?
That makes three posts that start with “So.” Plus I assume you’re not Jewish. So (sic) just…you know…a word to the wise…
No excuses for Brown’s performance, but the focus on him helped Chertoff escape the heat he deserved.
Rove playbook, chapter 2, page 84….
Yeah, Brownie accepted the pat on his head from the patrone. Doesn’t excuse his basic level of incompetence. What he should have done is meaningless- he was pat of a system that doesn’t reward achievement or competence, but status. FEMA was viewed as inconsequential, so a minor leaguer was installed.
Brown is culpable because he was hideously unprepared to do the job.
Chertoff is culpable for even having Brown in the mix, and for not being able to see that more oversight was needed.
Bush and the Republican Party are culpable because of the mockery they’ve made of civil service, making it a crony reward machine rather than th mechanism for actually dlivering governmental services to citizens….
There’s all kinds of bame ot go around. Dan Quayle wasn’t an aberration, he is the apotheosis of the Republican system.
“(S)hould disaster strike.”
That’s unpossible!
He’s so pathetic, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him. If you’re tired of it, go back and read the emails he sent during Katrina. That always does the trick for me.
I agree that the focus has been on Brown way too much. The focus should be on Bush, for looking at a department like FEMA, where actual important things are coordinated and where actual lives hang in the balance on not-entirely-infrequent occasions, and thinking, “Yeah, this office is inconsequential enough that I can probably use it to throw one of my room-temperature-IQ campaign-contributing homies a bone.” Anyone who’d approach the work of actual governing and taking care of the American people with that kind of nonchalance is not someone who should be within 100 miles of the White House, yet it’s the kind of laziness with which Bush has approached pretty much every domestic issue since his Social Security privatization Ponzi scheme was shown the door. Actually, even foreign policy is starting to get this same kind of treatment — witness the way Bush just sat there with a thumb up his ass for weeks on end while the Lebanon conflict raged and raged.
“go back and read the emails he sent during Katrina.”
I wonder who “leaked” those emails….
This clown had the unspeakable gall to start a disaster management consulting company, which is like Barry Bonds becoming a high school phys ed instructor. There is plenty of Katrina blame to share among Bush, Chertoff, Blanco, Nagin, the tax-cutting Congress, etc., etc., without letting Brownie off the hook. They’re still finding bodies in the ruined houses where New Orleans used to be.
Mmmmmm! Minty-fresh!
I still maintain that Brownie was a front while FEMA was gutted, and they wanted FEMA to fail miserably. “SEE! Big government ain’t no good!” ‘Specially since FEMA did so well under The Clenis…