Great Moments in Blame-Shifting

In case you missed it, let's use a card-playing analogy to describe former FEMA director Michael Brown's astonishing performance before Congress yesterday:

Say you're playing poker. Michael Brown is sitting across the felt from you. "I have a royal flush," you tell him in a loud, clear voice, and then you show him your cards to prove it. Without an instant's hesitation Brown, who is holding a deuce, a seven and a nine, all of different suits, and rounding out his hand with an old laundry ticket and a slice of bologna, pushes his one remaining chip to the center of the table. "I'm all in," he announces. "Now go f**k yourself."

Do you see what I'm saying? There's hubris, and then there's something so far beyond hubris that it could be called metahubris, or über-hubris (which is, in addition to being descriptive, a kick to say).  Summoned to Capitol Hill to "sit there like a block of wood and take whatever we feel like dishing up on your sorry, disgraced ass," as the Congressional summons put it, Brown chose instead to fight back. Unfortunately, his self-defense was mounted in more or less the same slipshod manner as FEMA's initial response to Katrina. Brown apparently didn't get the memo about operating under the high scrutiny afforded a presidential appointee, and so didn't seem to take into account the following matters of public record (helpfully provided by the American Progress Action Fund):

Brown to Congress: "Over the past few years [FEMA] has lost a lot of manpower."
Brown to CNN, September 2004: "... we have all the manpower and resources we need."

Brown to Congress: "FEMA doesn't evacuate communities."
Brown to CNN immediately post-Katrina: FEMA was conducting "rescue missions" and would "continue to evacuate all the hospitals."

Brown to Congress: He coordinated the evacuation of New Orleans by "urging the governor and the mayor to order the mandatory evacuation." Pressed by Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) as to why he didn't do more, Brown snapped: "What would you like for me to do, Congressman?"
President Bush's disaster declaration, August 27:  FEMA was authorized to "identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."

So, you know... Oops.

Maybe it's expecting too much for a guy who field-promoted himself from "Assistant to the City Manager" to "Assistant City Manager," like Gareth in "The Office," to keep track of slippery little things like details. But Mr. Irresponsible is always on the lookout for lessons to be drawn in the quest for appropriate public behavior. So let's concentrate on the moral of Brown's historic hissy fit, which is this: It may be true that, as the adage goes, if you can't sing, you should sing loud. Just try not to do it in a room full of pitch pipes.

Comments

[*** Dave]

Brown's a doofus, and was clearly in over his head. While none of the government officials in charge (at all levels) covered themselves in glory, Brown's head deserves to roll first.

Of the three quotes you give, though, really, only the first one is damning. There's a difference, for example, between doing rescues and evacuating hospitals, and evacuating whole communities. And there's a difference between FEMA being given permission to round up the resources to do what they want and FEMA ordering a mandatory evacuation. Granted, in that case, they ought to have rounded up 10,000 busses and rolled into town with megaphones blaring, "Your mayor's an idiot, so for God's sake, get aboard," but that's a different matter.

[Mr. Irresponsible]

Well, some of these are angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin distinctions, it seems to me. FEMA clearly had a broad role to play and the mandate to play it, and didn't; on that much we can agree. My interest is more in the lessons to be learned from Brown's unbelievably tone-deaf appearance before the Congressional inquisitors. It seems clear to me that he would have done better to take his whuppin' and crawl back to the private sector than he did trying to bluff his way back into the game, or maybe more accurately, snarl his way back into it (to stretch the gaming metaphor like taffy).

[*** Dave]

Oh, agreed. I think anyone involved in this would get a lot more mileage in fessing up to where they messed up and less to figuring out how to shift responsibility to others.