Comments on: Horses

By: jet

jet — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 01:06:45 +0000

From listening to the police scanner for days, I think it is plainly obvious that communications was a disaster. At one point it took 45 minutes for a police call for assistance from taking fire to get back to the main FEMA et al channel. I have no idea what all went wrong, but I have a feeling a lot of dicks need to be fed to the fire.

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 00:13:11 +0000

Unfortunately, there is a fashionable dogma in certain quarters these days which states that you don’t need to know anything about engineering to manage engineers, you don’t need to know anything about medicine to manage hospitals – and you don’t need to know anything about anything to manage a national government’s emegency management infrastructure – you just need to be a “good leader”.

It may be near-impossible in general to prove that someone does not have the required “leadership qualities” for a job (which is an incredibly vague concept). It is likely to be far easier to prove that they did not have any experience of the work that the organisation is supposed to be doing.

In this case, however, I guess Brown is supremely inappropriate for the job in all respects – he lacks leadership abilities, he lacks experience, and he is presiding over shockingly cruel policies such as excluding the Red Cross from the city.

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 22:44:10 +0000

re: Brown, I’m hoping that one of the few bright spots is that we might eventually have a national discussion about cronyism and how giving pals high-level gov’t positions can be disasterous.

By: Ben P

Ben P — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 21:21:10 +0000

Maybe thats how it works in the Bush administration.

The previous head, I think his name was James Witt, was considered an expert and had done a very good job revamping the organization. Indeed, the Gov. of Lousiana just appointed Witt to head relief efforts – post Katrina, mind you – for the state.

By: John

John — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 19:47:03 +0000

Why the surprise over Brown? Head of FEMA is (most of the time) a relatively low profile patronage appointment so, surprise surprise, it went to one of Bush’s bagmen. Isn’t that how the system works?

By: JR

JR — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 18:11:27 +0000

I am waiting to find out what Brown was doing during the days before Katrina hit. On vacation? Sitting in terror-related meetings? Doing fund-raising?