you gotta be f*ckin' kidding me.

[sophiaserpentia]

The Bush Administration has dropped all pretense of holding an actual "investigation" into the Katrina aftermath. Who do you suppose would be the most biased person possible, the one with the most serious risk to his professional reputation, the one with the most to lose at this point? That's right, you guessed it.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown is being retained by the agency as a "consultant."

Brown was on the Hill today to speak with staff at a special House committee in preparation for his testimony at a Tuesday hearing on Katrina. In the session, Brown said that he was working as a consultant "to provide a review" of Katrina preparations and immediate aftermath, according to two congressional sources.

It is unclear what, if anything, he is being paid. "I would assume he is being paid, yes," an aide close to the committee said on background. But no one at the briefing asked that question of Brown.

thanks to riverheart for the link

Comments

[smilypixie.livejournal.com]

Gah, FEMA shouldn't be blamed for this at all. I have members of my church who are with FEMA and were dying to help right away, but couldn't because they weren't given the OK right away.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Whether FEMA is to blame or not, the guy who lost his job over this mess should not be any sort of "consultant" performing a review of what happened.

[smilypixie.livejournal.com]

I suppose. But why not? Who else would do it? The President? What's wrong with someone else telling FEMA who tells the President what's wrong in New Orleans? It does suck that the guy lost his job, though. Was he considered a consultant after he lost his job? The newspaper article was a little blurb.

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

He was fired for gross incompetence -- he was completely unqualified for his job, having been given the post purely and only because he was a personal friend of the President -- and is now being appointed to investigate his own malfeasance. That's the problem; it's a huge conflict of interest.

[smilypixie.livejournal.com]

So it's just that this guy was not the right guy to say what was wrong in New Orleans. But how can someone exactly do that wrong? And who would be right for the job?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

But why not?

Because it is an obvious conflict of interest. Do you honestly think he is going to say, "I did X, Y, and Z wrong"? He can be expected to do what he can to prove himself clean. People died because of the bureaucratic mess, and there may eventually be criminal charges.

The person who does this investigation should be someone who was not involved in the original mishap.

[smilypixie.livejournal.com]

>The person who does this investigation should be someone who was not involved in the original mishap.<

That is definitely true.

I'm just now getting the pieces of the puzzle and piecing them together.

So, who is right for the job?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

It should be someone independent, with no vested interest in the current administration, and no vested interest in making partisan swipes. Someone like Colin Powell, perhaps, or John McCain.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I must disagree. Perhaps the members of your church wren't to blame, but certainly there were higher-up elements of FEMA who actively thwarted help coming in. They wouldn't let the Red Cross give out food and water in NOLA. They turned down trucks and buses other states offered to get people out when that was still needed. Later, they stopped the Nat'l Guard from giving out food and water in NOLA. They set up camps for evacuees that looked like the places we put Japanese in WW II until media outrage in the blogosphere shut them down.

Go read some of the posts right after the disaster over at hurricane_fema.

[smilypixie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do admit that maybe higher-ups in FEMA are not totally innocent.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I agree Brownie shouldn't be paid to explain how he screwed up, but that doesn't mean he's heading the investigation. That said, I don't believe the Admin is making any sort of an honest effort to investigate either. Why would they? If they started pointing fingers, as Jon Stewart said, they'd poke their own eyes out.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

This is a new low in surreality. Next up: Cheney heads investigation of Haliburton contracts!