The Rehabilitation Of Brownie?

It seems a lot of bloggers are discussing this, so I figured I'd throw my two cents in... the rehabilitation of Michael Brown in the eyes of the media. Six months ago, Brown was a national punchline, the face of the failures of the Katrina aftermath. Now, new information that's come to light shows us a bigger picture, one that shows Mr. Brown in command before the storm doing his best to warn the Bush administration about the dangers. Many liberal bloggers are jumping in to "forgive him" and apologize for jumping on him in September. Me? Not so much.

The bottom line is that, however good he was in the job beforehand, when Katrina hit, he screwed up big time. He was out to lunch... or more precisely, out to dinner. On one hand, I have always resisted the urge to paint Brown as the scapegoat for the disaster, as the White House has. Yes, Brown screwed up, but the buck stops with King George and the rest of his administration. So I, on that note, am glad that Brown is speaking out and throwing the blame back around to the others who deserve it. Glad as I am for that, that doesn't change the fact that Brown didn't belong in that job and failed to act when his leadership was needed most. That he was/is smarter and more capable than the President isn't saying much these days.

Brown was interviewed on 'Real Time w/ Bill Maher' last night and if you can find a video clip of it, I recommend it. Maher hit all the right angles. He commended Brown for helping to get the whole story out, but asked him tough questions about (among other things) the cronyism that put him in charge of FEMA. I think the interview summed up how I feel. This is great that the truth is coming to light, but in the end, Michael Brown is still... Brownie.

Josh at Talking Points Memo also says it well-

...I don't think there's any use or reason to reconsider the conclusion that Brown was manifestly unqualified to be the head of the country's emergency management agency or that he found himself in that job because of his longtime friendship with Joe Allbaugh, one of the president's fixers. He was either guilty of or implicated in various other instances of ridiculousness. He was a poster-child for the administration's essential lack of interest in effective government, as an aim of public service distinct from consolidating political power and paying off political supporters out of the public fisc. Also, for us critics, to the extent there is a Brownie redemption afoot, it is in large part because the same guy many of us lambasted six months ago is now flattering our assumptions about how this administration works.

Still, in this and so many other cases, our assumptions, always based on a lot of factual evidence, are being borne out in spades. And Brown is coming forward with a decent amount of evidence that even if he wasn't the guy who should have had the job, and even if he made plenty of mistakes during Katrina, he wasn't just bumbling along unaware anything serious was happening. If inept and blameworthy himself he seems clearly to have understood the magnitude of the catastrophe that was afoot and took steps to deal with it.

He also is coming forward with what appears to be a decent paper trail showing he had some sense and gave warnings about FEMA's degradation and decline under the consolidated DHS. No one listen.

I can't see glorifying Michael Brown. He shouldn't have been in the job. He screwed up in a lot of different ways. He then carried the administration's water in trying to pin the blame on the locals, what must be a mortal sin in a FEMA Director. But he does get some credit for coming clean now and spilling at least some of the beans. And the beans he's spilled so far show that he's hardly the most blameworthy figure in the administration's shameful and pitiful response to the disaster that befell the Gulf Coast.

Sounds right to me.

PS- A major postscript here... the conservative weekly Human Events Online is reporting that "the secretary of Homeland Security has "only a few days left" in the Bush Cabinet". Administration sources deny this, but it's an interesting rumor. He certainly deserves the boot.

PPS- A great Washington Post editorial on the AP tape-
Caught On Tape