Price of Cronyism

From my point of view, the person who stands out to be totally incompetent in the Katrina disaster is Michael Brown, the head of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Services). The FEMA, as it name implies, was specially created for managing national disasters like nuclear attack, earthquakes, and hurricanes. In New Orleans, despite of a three-day warning, FEMA was invisible for two days after the hurricane struck. The reason? It was difficult to access the submerged city! Brown embarrassed himself on national TV by admitting that he did not know that there were thousands in New Orleans Convention Center (while it was broadcast over TV for everyone to see). He blamed the poor people in New Orleans for staying behind, despite of the evacuation requests. (Why could't they drive off to their summerhouses for a few days?). Wonder how this toupeed character got this important government job? His resume shows that he is a former Colorado lawyer who worked for some Arab Horse Show organization for ten years and got fired. Despite of his unimpressive background, his college friend Joe Allbaugh (who is close to President Bush) hired Brown to FEMA. Until now, Brown was having an easy time as the head of FEMA. In 2004, he was busy making sure that the people of Florida are pleased with the Government response to the hurricanes, and wasted some money by helping the wrong people! No harm was done, as it was an election year. Now it is a different story. His lack of experience in disaster planning and execution, has possibly caused thousands of lives in New Orleans.
Of course, all Presidents reward their supporters when they are in office. Usually it is done in the form of Ambassadorships to unheard of places like 'Linkhenstan' -- not as head of national disaster management!