Brown Had Resignation Plans Before Katrina Hit

[Rose Siding]

Michael D. Brown was days away from announcing plans to resign as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29, according to e-mails released by separate House and Senate investigations into the government's flawed response to the disaster.

Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate investigation, questioned whether Brown's status played a role in the response.

"The fact that it appears that Michael Brown was planning to resign may explain in part his curious detachment during the Katrina catastrophe," Collins said.

The e-mails also suggest that the administration knew Brown was on the verge of departing when he was recalled as head of the sluggish rescue and relief efforts for the New Orleans area.
....
In an Aug. 31 e-mail to FEMA aide James Tillie, Brown wrote, "I should have done my announcement a week early." That evening, Craig wrote to Brown: "We need to get this done right or neither of us are leaving on great terms . . . and we were days away."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501575.html

[DRoseDARs]

1. I have a co-worker that seems to think the last hour of his shift...

...which is the first hour of my shift ("changing of the guard" as it were) is his time to slack off and hardly do any work. Gee, this sounds familiar... but with less deadly results.

[madeline_con]

2. "Michael D. Brown was days away ..."

He saw it coming, he should have resigned while the storm was days away!

I'm not buying it!

[napi21]

3. I don't but that at all! I watched his testimony at the hearings,

and if he was about to resign, he wouldn't have gotten so upset and almost yelled, "What do you want me to do, be Superman and just whick everyone out of NO myself?"

Someone who is about to resign wouldn't have reacted that emotionally.

[kurth]

4. "Yeah.. I was gonna quit anyway." Bullshit!

Brownie is still a fucking moron and a coward.

[cliss]

5. What a .....

Michael 'Brown-nose' 'Brownie' Brown.

What a jerk. It's always about him, isn't it? And even after he was finally ousted from his job, he said he was going to "go home and have a margarita" or something to that effect.

He gives new meaning to the word self-absorbed.

[VolcanoJen]

6. So, the Director of FEMA planned to bag his job in the middle...

... of the busiest hurricane season on record. And he planned to throw in the towel just days before the worst hurricane in most of our memories struck.

Real stand-up guy, that Brownie. Typical crony Republican coward, absolutely no sense of duty, service or responsibility of office.

[Javaman]

7. Good old John Lovitz should do a bit on brown.

Yeah yeah, I was just going to retire, yeah yeah, with...Morgan Fairchild, yeah yeah, that's the ticket.

[0007]

8. Is this a cop out? I don't have the energy to read another

bullshit article about this creep.

[GoldenOldie]

11. What a crock of crap!

Brown sits in a plush job, collecting a federal paycheck for doing absolutely nothing but attending DC cocktail parties with the power brokers, traveling non-stop on the taxpayers dime, stand behind/beside George, Cheney, Chertoff, etc., for the obligatory photo-ops and he was giving it all up because???

Katrina happens and suddenly Brown is now in the photo-op spotlight and his resume/abilities and expertise are only then questioned and when the anger of We the People become to much for the administration he is replaced from his FEMA position ONLY to be given a contract for Homeland Security as a "CONSULTANT?" Consultant of what? Consulting who?

Now weeks/months later the press and the public are told that he didn't respond to Katrina because he was considering his resignation?

It's time that the press started taking a look a what Brown's consultation contract is and just what US$$$$ his contract pays.

[zann725]

9. Bull! By saying NOW he was one-foot-out-door, he's trying to dodge the

blame for the "negligent homicide" responsibility of thousands of N.O. citizens...the true numbers of which we will never know.

Somehow we can count the death count in foreign disasters in hours, or a couple of days at most...yet over a month past Katrina, we remain clueless as to the thousands who died. Then Shrubco DID hire a special group of undertakers whose specialty is "hiding" dead, and neglecting to do autopsies. No questions, no answers...please.

[JPZenger]

10. Brownie STILL on Federal payroll

There was an AP article this morning about the hearing. It said that Collins was surprised to find out that Brownie is STILL ON THE FEDERAL PAYROLL at full pay. Congress had been previously told he was only being paid for 30 days.