The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias

09/13/05

The recall of Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Mike Brown last week from the disaster on the Gulf Coast to Washington was, perhaps, the perfect Bush administration moment. Faced with growing criticism of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and the revelation that the nation's disaster-management agency is run by a man whose primary job qualification seems to have been sharing a college dorm room with one of the president's political cronies, the White House acted swiftly … to control the political fallout. Brown wasn't fired -- that would be too much like an admission that he shouldn't have had his job in the first place. Instead, the administration moved Brown out of the limelight in the hopes that the controversy would die down... [editor's note: In his haste to post this, Mr. Yglesias obviously did so before Brown resigned last night; the message is still valid, nevertheless! - SAT]

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10238


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp