Documad
09-15-2005, 10:30 PM
I've been trying to figure out why we don't hear more about Homeland Security. After 9/11, Homeland Security was supposed to make government agencies communicate better but that didn't happen with Katrina. On public radio this evening, an international disaster relief expert said that FEMA used to be set up to respond to things like Katrina and that it was the administration's single-minded focus on terrorism and the creation of Homeland Security that was to blame for the poor response. He said that the FEMA director used to have a cabinet-level position and could speak directly to the president, but that now FEMA reports to Homeland Security (which is not a good idea when there is a natural disaster). Then I read this article (in print form, at my salon). The article answers my question about how an idiot like Brown was put in charge of FEMA, and how FEMA became a shadow of its former self.
It's from a Minneapolis weekly an the article has further links. Here's a sample:
FEMA was formally absorbed into Bush's new Department of Homeland Security and stripped of its powers to handle disaster response planning. The agency was practically if not formally a dead letter. Apparently it no longer counts for much even as a patronage vessel: Allbaugh's successor, his college roommate Mike Brown, was a third-rater all the way--a one-time supervisor of horse show judges whose bosses eventually deemed that job too much for Brown and asked him to quit. According to the Think Progress blog, his deputies at FEMA include other clients from the bottom rungs of the patronage system--minor functionaries from past Bush campaigns and the like. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a number of staff jobs at FEMA have not been filled at all for some time. The sort of people we're talking about are hacks, and not even A- or B-list hacks. Such is the standing of FEMA now.
full article in city pages (http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1293/article13674.asp)
It's from a Minneapolis weekly an the article has further links. Here's a sample:
FEMA was formally absorbed into Bush's new Department of Homeland Security and stripped of its powers to handle disaster response planning. The agency was practically if not formally a dead letter. Apparently it no longer counts for much even as a patronage vessel: Allbaugh's successor, his college roommate Mike Brown, was a third-rater all the way--a one-time supervisor of horse show judges whose bosses eventually deemed that job too much for Brown and asked him to quit. According to the Think Progress blog, his deputies at FEMA include other clients from the bottom rungs of the patronage system--minor functionaries from past Bush campaigns and the like. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a number of staff jobs at FEMA have not been filled at all for some time. The sort of people we're talking about are hacks, and not even A- or B-list hacks. Such is the standing of FEMA now.
full article in city pages (http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1293/article13674.asp)