Which was more important, helping the people of the Gulf Coast survive Hurricane Katrina ... or Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown's feelings?
Based on his interview today with NBC's Tim Russert, you'd have to conclude that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was more concerned with Brown's feelings. Perhaps that's a piece of the puzzle as to why the federal government so badly managed last summer's disaster.
Maybe, instead of worrying about keeping "people's spirits up," Chertoff should have been working with Brown to come up with solutions to the myriad of problems that occurred in the days following the storm. Perhaps the death toll might not have been as high if Chertoff had worried less about giving "brutal assessments about people’s performance."
Given what we know now about Chertoff's incompetence, isn't it time President Bush ask Chertoff to resign?
From today's
edition of NBC's
Meet the Press:
CHERTOFF: Thursday night, I began to — I asked myself, “Are we dealing with a situation where it’s not just the inherent, overwhelming challenge,
but that maybe, despite good intentions, Mr. Brown is really not up to this.”
RUSSERT: “Mike Brown not up to this.” The very next day, the president came down to the Gulf region, and here you are on the screen — right of the screen in the purple shirt, Mr. Brown in the middle, the president on the left. And this is where the president uttered these now-infamous words. Let’s listen.
(Videotape, September 2, 2005)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.
(End videotape)
RUSSERT: The president is saying he’s doing a heck of a job; the night before, you’re saying, “I don’t think the guy’s up to it.” Why didn’t you tell the president?
CHERTOFF:
Well, again, I never get into conversations with the president. But I do think the context of that remark is that Brown had been up for, you know, practically every night for the last few days. I think whatever my judgment was about whether his skills were matched to the challenge, I think certainly everybody believed at that point he was doing his best. And I think
this is really an effort to kind of buck the troops up, recognize the fact that everybody was really exhausted and working hard. And the fact is, we were in the middle — still very much in the middle of the event,
and we needed to keep people’s spirits up, so I think you’ve got to look at this as — in the context of a recognition that everybody was really exhausted and overwhelmed by the nature of the challenge.
RUSSERT: Was it an attempt to spin the American people? Things on the ground were in such stark reality to what the official pronouncements coming out of the government were?
CHERTOFF: No, I think — I think, you know, when you are in a disaster, you actually look people in the eyes, and you see how they’re working their hearts out.
And even if it — if they haven’t done the kind of job that you wish they could have done. As a human matter, I think you want to reach out, you want to, you know, pat them on the back, you want to buck them up. I don’t think that’s the time to start to engage in finger pointing or in — in, you know, giving brutal assessments about people’s performance.***
This item first appeared at
JABBS.
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