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Heckuva Job
 By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, August 29, 2007  |  10:11 AM

John Edwards scored some points this week in New Orleans by proposing "Brownie's Law," requiring that political appointees be qualified for the positions for which they are nominated. (Actually it sounds more like a policy than an actual piece of legislation, since, of course, there's currently no law preventing a President Edwards from restricting his pool of nominees to fully qualified, experienced people. He'd just be the first president to actually do so.)

The proposal, of course, is sardonically named for former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who is forever linked to his role in the response to Hurricane Katrina and his previous work at the International Arabian Horse Association.

But as I've written before, and as Brown himself points out in an interview in the Washington Post today, Brown did have experience in emergency management when he was named to head FEMA. That experience was gained at FEMA itself. He started at the agency as general counsel and worked his way up over the course of a couple of years to the nomination for the top slot.

Now that may not have been the best experience, but if Edwards and other senators thought Brown lacked the qualifications to head FEMA, they had an easy remedy at their disposal: reject his nomination. They didn't.

None of this is to suggest that Brown did a stellar job, or was the best guy to run the agency. It is to suggest two other things:


  • That sound bites and simple proposals about requiring appointee qualifications aren't going to improve the caliber of nominees.

  • That continuing, even two years after the fact, to make Brown the designated scapegoat for Katrina merely serves to deflect attention away from the multiple systemic problems within the federal government in both preparing for a disaster like Katrina and responding to it.




Comments


This is in response to Jon's comments about President Bush. He must have a ery short memory. I believe that, if he would look objectively at any democratic administration in his time period, he would find that they were either more corrupt, less competent, or both.

David Schow  | Friday, August 31, 2007 |  12:10 PM


Amen Jon K.

Gordo  | Friday, August 31, 2007 |  08:49 AM


Michael Brown was general counsel for FEMA. He had training as an attorney and not as a manager or an emergency responder. If legal training is the same as management training, why do universities bother with schools of management? They are two different disciplines. The worst managers I experienced in 30 years of government service were lawyers. Banning attorneys from non-legal administrative positions would be the best move toward effective government that any candidate could propose.

Ted Bean  | Thursday, August 30, 2007 |  12:57 PM


What is all this fuss about Brownie Slaw? I say that if the Girl Scouts want to sell more than cookies, they should! Let them diversify, for goodness sake! It’s good for the younger girls, and we called them Brownies back when I was a youngster, too. Of course, their parents should be out there with them, especially their fathers, helping them lug those great big tubs of slaw. I have a great recipe for slaw that I can let them use because I know what happens when those cookies taste like barn floor scrapings… What? Brownie’s Law? Michael Brown who was called Brownie? ... Oh, that's quite different... Never mind...

Emily Litella  | Thursday, August 30, 2007 |  08:01 AM


Exactly. Nobody in the chain of approval on Mr. Brown can point fingers of blame since the President appointed Brown and the Senate approved the nomination.

Unless Brown was another of the infamous 'recess' appointments Bush is so fond of naming.

I've been on this earth 56 years and cannot remember a President less capable or diligent than Bush when it came to carrying out the nuts and bolts of his job.

His administration rivals Grant's when it comes to incompetence and corruption.

Jon Koppenhoefer  | Wednesday, August 29, 2007 |  06:18 PM



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Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.

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