When FEMA was absorbed into the greater Homeland Security apparatus, the protocol for immediate disaster relief operations changed. An event labeled an “incident of national significance” — like Hurricane Katrina — meant an automatic realignment of bureaucratic hierarchy, and Michael Brown was technically demoted before he should have been fired. The Washington Post snagged some 80 e-mails which were furiously sent back and forth among now-high-profile incompetents, who also don’t talk so good:
“Demote the Under Sec to PFO [Principal Federal Officer]?” an outraged FEMA press secretary Sharon Worthy wrote Brown at 10:54 p.m., soon after Chertoff’s decision. “What about the precedent being set? What does this say about executive management and leadership in the Agency?”
“Exactly,” replied Brown, then-under secretary for preparedness and response…
I don’t think those were rhetorical questions, Mike. Unless your true genius lies in being mystically laconic. You know, signing off e-mails with sayings like, “You must learn to master your fear or else fear will become your master.”
Though it’s probably the old rule about making a copy of a copy — it always comes out with greater dither and less resolution — that governs any attempt to make a crony of a crony:
“Let them play their raindeer [sic] games as long as they are not turning around and tasking us with their stupid questions. None of them have [sic] a clue about emergency management,” [Brooks] Altshuler [Brown's deputy chief of staff] told Brown and Brown’s chief of staff, Patrick Rhode.
Freudian slip on that “raindeer,” huh?
Messages Depict Disarray in Federal Katrina Response [WaPo]
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