Who the hell is listening to this guy? I can’t imagine even conservatives have much love for him, considering they essentially tried to make him the fall guy for everything that went wrong during Katrina.
Not only that, but according to the article he tried starting a disaster consulting firm some years back. Who would hire him? Did he even have any clients? That’d be like hiring Michael Vick to be your pet sitter.
Well, I guess he’s just a walking example of how you can be a fuck up in America and still succeed.
I suspect it’s only a matter of time before President Camacho is taking the oath of office.
Someone who wants a socially connected person who used to hold a high position in government. Access has little to do with competency – you didn’t think competency was the currency of ex-pol employability, did you?
Browne is not some exemplar of clear, monumental failure. Fact is, if GWB hadn’t stupidly called attention to the issue, I’m not sure most people would have known or remembered who the guy was. But it became clear he wasn’t doing much of anything, which was at odds with Bush’s glowing encomium. We can probably all agree that Browne was a feckless twit with more money and friends than competency. You’d just described 75% of the political appointees there are. Thing is, there’s not (and certainly wasn’t pre-Katrina) a blueprint for what the director of FEMA is supposed to do, exactly, and on what timetable, for each category of potential emergency. It’s also not like some previous FEMA director had faced an identical situation and handled it a lot better or differently.
FEMA was only created in 1979, so there’s not a lot of historic support for or pattern of how the federal government would or should respond to natural disasters, which are inherently localized. It’s mission is described primarily in terms of “support and coordination,” which in any given situation, might take some trial and error to get right. The idea that the federal government, as such, is going to hand deliver bottled water or rescue you from your rooftop, when a hurricane hits your hurricane prone city, is definitely . . . of recent vintage. On the post-Katrina, ex post facto, standard of “getting it right,” I don’t think FEMA’s ever turned in a performance that would satisfy Browne’s mockers. The worst and best you could say about Browne is that until Katrina, no one from the federal government had ever prevented or done too much to recover from a massive hurricane strike, and that he didn’t raise the bar.
I say this not for GD purposes but to explain why I don’t find it hard to believe that the guy can have what we view as a “post egregious failure career,” based on my impression that, twit though he may be, Browne is actually not some epic, monumental example of mis or malfeasance.
Will I be listening to his radio show? Doubt it . . . .
When he was eating dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Baton Rouge (on the taxpayers dime) while at the same time thousands of people were without food and water 70 miles down the road in New Orleans, I think it’s safe to say that Browne (both as a person and certainly as a leader of FEMA) was a clear and monumental failure…
He’s been a fill-in host on that station and another for the last couple of years. He regularly gets schooled by his callers on all number of issues. The dittoheads will swallow everything he says, but any rational listeners, be they Dem, Independant, or Rep, will slap their heads if they stumble on to his show.
It will be a constant reminder of the incompetance of the Bush administration.
I agree.
Is any government official in Hurricane Alley going to risk their necks by hiring Brown to draw up an emergency readiness plan or conduct a disaster response? I highly doubt it.
But then again, half the time these “consulting” firms don’t really coordinate, much less perform, any heavy lifting or nitty-gritty work, such as would be required for a disaster response. They exist mainly to put clients in touch with Washington power brokers.
As much of a pariah as Brown has (IMHO deservedly) become, I imagine he made many contacts while FEMA director and probably still has a few friends (or at the very least people willing to return his calls) in high places.