Category: Old Dish

FEMA bans photo crews from recording the dead bodies in the streets of New Orleans. (Hat tip: Hart’s Big Picture.)

For rescuing fellow human beings. Incomprehensible.

Okay, now this is insane:

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

But wait: there’s more:

“But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.”

This is from the Salt Lake Tribune, not Daily Kos. Words fail me.

We all knew that the president picks his aides from among his friends, but this is as ridiculous as it is criminally negligent:

Before joining FEMA in 2001, Brown, a protege of longtime Bush aide Joseph Allbaugh, was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management.
An official biography of Brown’s top aide, acting deputy director Patrick Rhode, doesn’t list disaster relief experience.
The department’s No. 3 official, acting deputy chief of staff Brooks Altshuler, also does not have emergency management experience, according to FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule.
Rule said the absence of direct experience managing emergencies is irrelevant because top managers need “the ability to keep the organization running.”
But Eric Holdeman, director of the King County Office of Emergency Management in Seattle, said familiarity with the specifics of disaster management is essential.
“Experience is not just general managerial experience, it’s experience in the field,” he said.

Government by and for the fundraisers and cronies (and their college room-mates). In wartime. Unforgivable.

The New York Times weighs in. Brown seemed concerned about p.r. as what he called a “near catastrophic event” occurred:

Brown’s memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to “convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.”

He did that part of the job brilliantly as well, didn’t he? Please send me any other editorials from around the country calling for Brown’s resignation. I’ll link to as many as I can. And keep the “Fire Brown” blog links coming too.

THE SALVATION ARMY: I’ve gotten many emails from gay readers asking how I can send money to a group that discriminates openly against homosexuals. I can only say that I don’t think the victims of this disaster care too much about the employment policies of the people helping them. This is not a time for political correctness, and while I may disagree with some of the SA’s policies, they also do miraculous, good work helping the truly needy. I trust them to do that, and believe that their faith helps them do amazing work. At this time, God bless them; and anyone else trying to help.

If you haven’t donated, please do. I gave to the Salvation Army. But there are plenty others. Glenn Reynolds, to his enormous credit, helped organize the blog drive to help. TruthLaidBear has pitched in. Let’s roll.

“Who knows … if you can persuade the president to finally hold somebody accountable for gross incompetence, maybe then you can lead a campaign that results in Mr. Bush actually vetoing a spending bill. Ok, probably asking for miracles here. Nevermind.”

Trent Lott blasts FEMA incompetence. This really isn’t or shouldn’t be a pro-Bush, anti-Bush, left or right issue. We had a catastrophe and the government was incompetent in response – at all levels. Given the threat still over us since 9/11, it’s simply responsible to ensure we get accountability and reform at the federal level especially before the next disaster. Would you want Michael Brown to be FEMA head if al Qaeda attacked a major city with chemical weapons? This isn’t about politics. It’s about a functional government in wartime. More blogosphere calls for firing Brown here, here, and here.

More support here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Again, this covers the spectrum from left to right, except for the most shameless of the Bush partisans. And again: few of these people are exempting the local authorities for dereliction of duty either. But the feds dropped the ball. Maybe this time – for the first time – this administration will actually show accountability. Update: more Brown resignation calls here and here.

This is becoming a farce. Can anyone put him in touch with reality?