<p>Either:</p>
<p>He lied about his resume</p>
<p>FEMA lied about his resume</p>
<p>Did he fib to get the job? Or did FEMA fib to justify him getting the job</p>
<p>EIther way, its bad</p>
<p>I thought people in that kind of position have everything checked out, down to the neighbors…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12610176.htm[/url]”>http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12610176.htm</a></p>
<p>Those rotten press people have made a scapegoat out of him and right before he was planning to retire…Unidentified sources say…yep…thats the ticket, he was leaving anyway.</p>
<p>Oh, my. How can the country go on without the single best qualifed person in the entire nation to protect us?</p>
<p>Do you think they actually interview people and put of notices of these jobs? Or is it, he was my college roommate. okay, good enough for our DHS. The lives of millions are in his hands, but hey, no problem</p>
<p>Makes one wonder</p>
<p>He was one of the few that didn’t work for Bush Sr.</p>
<p>Standard operating procedure is for the winning party to put together lists of those who helped with the election and then to match up resumes with appointments.</p>
<p>To the winner go the spoils</p>
<p>Okay, an ambassodorship to Belgium, maybe, but the responibility of taking care of millions of people</p>
<p>It its like they didn’t care, and put someone inept in FEMA to get rid of it</p>
<p>From what I understand, there wasn’t much in the FEMD/DHS plans about what to do if the “first responsders”-police, fire, etc, were overwhelmed</p>
<p>Gee, ya think that would have been important</p>
<p>But what if he doesn’t like waffles?</p>
<p>Certainly the revised FEMA plan has to account for incompetant governors and mayors who don’t follow their own plans and then compound the problem by preventing aid from being administered. Perhaps the next plan needs to allow the President to declare the local officials incompetant and send them packing back to take care of such things as parking tickets and the next state fair.</p>
<p>The incompetance was top down, and I mean from the very top.</p>
<p>Locals held on promised that there would be help within 48 hours, but the calvery never came…the commander was playing horseshoes and couldn’t be bothered over a few thousand minority lives.</p>
<p>When I think of the paperwork and hassels teachers were put through to demonstrate they were “highly qualified”…</p>
<p>I agree that elected officials should be able to appoint people who agree with their philosophy to administrative positions, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be required to be qualified for that position. </p>
<p>When does the line for fraud (taking money under false pretenses) and negligent homicide (people die because you failed to take reasonable action) get crossed in situations like this?</p>
<p>He accepted a position for which he had no skill, knowledge and then didn’t attempt to gain such. He was too stupid to see that he would eventually have to perform.</p>
<p>I’ve been pondering this for years. Why do you have to take a test to be a CPA, lawyer, get certified to be a teacher, but there is no test to take to be president or be a senator or congressman…etc… To me you should have to take a test that shows you understand history, economics, English and have a generally good intellect.</p>
<p>The test for an elected official is the election process…its the appointments that need a better look. Republicans, Democrats, State, Local and National levels all have dead wood floating from the campaign.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?hp</a>
Paul Krugman’s editorial asking where are their other Michael Brown’s lurking in positions of responsibility…environment, Food and Drug, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose Republican chairman saw as his first duty to hire a gun to get rid of liberal programing…that is any program that questioned the President’s position or programs. </p>
<p>Some will quote, “to the victor belongs the spoils”, but there seems to be too much spoilage here.</p>
<p>I never said it was a good system.
But that is simply how it is set up.</p>
<p>
During the Clinton admin the unqualified folks filling lots of government slots happened to have political leanings that were closer to mine. Most of these political appointments cost us money (not only their salary but their poor management in areas where they are far from expert). In this case, I’m disappointed (and surprised) that the head of FEMA would be a no-skills appointment … it seems there should be some positions where political appointments are not allowed; jobs with serious safety concerns (FEMA, FDA, etc) … however we’d never be that explicit so this could never be. (and I’m sure checking any admistration would find just as many horrible appointments … in this case we finally got burned by our system).</p>
<p>Clearly, the fellow was in way over his head. This time Bush II couldn’t ignore the media criticism, particularly after the “good job, Brownie” statement. And don’t forget that more than a few Republicans trashed FEMA and Michael Brown.</p>
<p>No, Bush doesn’t deserve the entire load of complaints; the Cajun and Creole locals did more than enough to embarass themselves. But politically, But still has blinders on and is dang stubborn. At least President Reagan hired competent conservatives.</p>
<p>Brown just resigned from FEMA…about time.
Now lets see Blanco and whatshisname follow suit.</p>
<p>And just the other day our President said “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job”.</p>