Of Horse Shows, Michael Brown and FEMA
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bad Decisions, General Politics, Hurricane KatrinaWhen I read this article about Michael Brown’s job before FEMA, I couldn’t help but feel some measure of disbelief. After 9/11, how could a guy who spent the previous 11 years as the head of an organization that oversees horse shows stay in as deputy director of one of the most important disaster relief organizations in the country?
Simply put, Michael Brown didn’t have anywhere near the experience he needed to be second in command at FEMA. And if he didn’t have enough experience to be second in command, he certainly didn’t have enough to be FIRST in command. This isn’t the type of employment where you “learn on the job.”
Anyway, this from the Boston Herald:
The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
So why was he fired?
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders’ and horse-show organization based in Colorado.“We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,” explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner’s office. “This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,” she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
“He was asked to resign,” Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president’s re-election campaign.
People, this is “The Good Ole Boys” network in action and it makes me f-u-r-i-o-u-s.
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September 6th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
What do you expect from a man who was not qualified, even remotely, to be president? GWB had only 4 1/2 years experience in elected office (and someone correct me if I am wrong but I think the Texas legislature runs on a one-year-on and one-year-off schedule which means that he really had only 2 1/2 years experience). And GWB’s private sector experience had nothing in it that would qualify/prepare him for the most powerful job in the world. How can you expect someone to hold underlings to a higher standard than the boss?
September 6th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Sure it is. James Lee Witt’s entire qualifications in emergency services prior to his tenure as Clinton’s head of FEMA were four years as the director of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. That’s not expertise. That’s an apprenticeship. There are probably 10,000 Chiefs of Police or Fire Commissioners who were better qualified.
But he grew into the office and did a pretty decent job.
This ain’t a Bush thang. This is a federal government thang.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
I’m not going to defend Bush’s experience here. He defended himself just fine last election and the one previous to that.
I just want to know WHY this happened. This seems to me like hiring the vice president of FEMA because you’re good friends with him, with looks like what the former head of FEMA did. That’s awful, and I post merely to highlight it.
Let the chips fall where they may.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Oh, and by the way, Bill Clinton’s qualifications for president were his many years as governor of Arkansas—one of the smallest, poorest, most rural states in the Union. He wasn’t qualified, either (as that nutcase Ross Perot pointed out correctly). But he did a pretty decent job.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
I don’t know how this can be defended. Clearly, as the catastrophe is alleviated, the nation’s attention should turn to how these fuck-ups happened, who caused the fuck-ups and how to hold those responsible for said fuck-ups accountable.
Sorry for the foul language, but this is making me irate! By the way, I have donated to the American Red Cross which really is the least we can all do.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
Dave Shuler writes: “Oh, and by the way, Bill Clinton’s qualifications for president were his many years as governor of Arkansas”
Enough! Qualifications do matter! Just because you can find an exception to the rule (e.g., my grandma smoked until she was 90 so how bad can smoking be?) does not negate the rule. I do not want to turn this into a Dem vs Repub thing. Bush has been a horrible evaluator of people and I think that is partly due to the fact that he has not really been held to a high standard. And this partly explains why he would tolerate a person like Brown running FEMA.
Justin writes: “I’m not going to defend Bush’s experience here. He defended himself just fine last election and the one previous to that.
I just want to know WHY this happened.”
Don’t you see the connection? If you have a president who is not really qualified for the office, you will get these types of appointments. I am no Bush hater but it is driving me mad to hear people wonder how this could happen. Take the appointment of Karen Hughes to take over the administration’s public diplomacy effort (particularly in the Muslim world). Does she even speak a mid eastern language? Does she have any experience with that part of the world? These are the questions that most capable people would ask before hiring someone to this type of post.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Dave writes in reference to Clinton:
“He wasn’t qualified, either (as that nutcase Ross Perot pointed out correctly). But he did a pretty decent job.”
He may or may not have been qualified (arguable in his mind) but did a decent job.
The main difference is that Brown was both not qualified and has done a terrible job … sort of like Bush himself.
September 6th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
So, I’ve done some more digging and here’s what i’ve found.
It does indeed appear as if Bush could be seen as personally responsible for FEMA’s poor response. The guy who hired Brown, Joe Allbaugh, didn’t have any disaster relief experience either when he was appointed by Bush.
In fact, 2 years after he got the job, he left FEMA to start a consulting firm for companies who wanted to do business in Iraq after the war…the war that hadn’t even started…
Read more from Political Animal.
September 7th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
OK, this is my pet peeve lately, but this administration has a bad track record for appointments. And, again, this is why I am concerned about nominating John Roberts for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It might not do any harm if you’re the President to install your friends into a few positions, but maybe you shouldn’t put them into the highest positions with the most responsibility and requiring the most experience you can find.
I’m really not one little bit surprised, however, because I think Bush is not qualified for his position, and we all know whose fault it is that he is there.
By the way - obviously Clinton was qualified for his position, despite his employment history because he did a very good job. The only quality thing Bush has done was to manage the 9/11 situation, but as many people on this blog have seen fit to point out - it is not fair to blame Bush for what happened in NO. Therefore, I don’t think it’s fair to give him credit for the 9/11 situation either. So, in my book, Bush has done nothing well.
September 7th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
The Bull Moose blog pretty much answers the question regarding Bush’s competence:
Arrested Development
The Moose states a harsh truth.
We have a man-child as President of the United States. That may seem an unfair characterization, but consider the President’s performance last Friday when he ventured to the storm ravaged Gulf Coast. In a revealing moment, he referred to the FEMA Director as “Brownie” and joked about his past good times in New Orleans.
It was inappropriate behavior that one would expect from an adolescent and not the adult leader of the free world. It largely went unnoticed.
But perhaps the clearest demonstration of the President’s arrested development is his inability to accept responsibility or accountability. Another revelatory moment was when the President pronounced that the response to Katrina was ” not acceptable.” Of course, he was the one in charge. It was as if a child passively proclaimed that “the milk was spilt”.
Maybe the Moose is unfair. But, within Republican circles it has been known that the President (who was previously known as “Junior”) is a bit, well, immature. He was created as a political force by Rove and is minded by Cheney. The country will survive his leadership, but it is striking that so many have protected him with the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Should anyone be surprised that he refused to cut short his mountain bike vacation? Should we really expect that he should be more articulate and more curious? Are we unfair to want him to take charge and responsibility?
America yearns for adult leadership. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until January, 2009.
http://www.bullmooseblog.com/2005/09/arrested-development.html
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:09 pm
[...] Here are my thoughts on this. It’s now apparent that Brown really was unfairly cast as the scapegoat in all of this, and that’s unfortunate. However, do I think he should have been appointed to head FEMA in the first place? No. As I detailed here, here and here, he was hardly qualified. But did he deserve the backlash he recieved after Katrina? No. Not by a long shot. [...]