What's next for Michael Brown?
The embattled FEMA director quit yesterday, just three days after being relieved of duty heading the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. In one of the great understatements of the year, Brown
admitted his resignation was "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president."
President George W. Bush <initially ducked questions about Brown's resignation yesterday on his third and most extensive tour of the Gulf. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," Bush told reporters in Gulfport, Miss.
In truth, Bush knew about the resignation, and had already selected a successor -- but he didn't want to pre-empt an official announcement.
This time, Bush
actually selected someone with emergency management experience, tapping David Paulison, a 30-year firefighting veteran who heads the U.S. Fire Administration. Huzzah!
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So what's next for Brown?
What can he do now? Who knows. It was learned recently that Brown
padded his resume.
So it's unlikely that Brown will go back to
overseeing the emergency services divisions of Edmond, Okla., because, as TIME magazine reported,
Brown never held a position of authority for the city. He was an assistant to the city manager, though -- a position that local officials say was little more than an
intern.
But what about going back to being a political science professor at Central State University, in Ohio? Nope. Charles Johnson, a member of the university's public relations office, said Brown "
wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here."Ok. But certainly Brown could return to his position as a director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, in Edmond, right? The nursing home doesn't have a board of directors anymore and when it did, no one remembers Brown being on it. According to a veteran employee Brown "
was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."
Yikes, where did Bush find this guy?
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In all seriousness, Brown, a member of the Oklahoma State Bar, could ultimately be disbarred for violating state rules of professional conduct. Oklahoma state law specifies that "any lawyer violating these rules is subject to discipline including "
disbarment, suspension of a respondent from the practice of law for a definite term."
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So what's next for Brown? Even if he is disbarred, history would suggest that Brown will have a soft landing, within the loving arms of the administration's conservative friends.
That may mean making the rounds as a public speaker. Heck, even
J.D. Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) is reportedly making money as a public speaker, in between
invitations to conservative-friendly events. Or perhaps a comfy job at a corporate friend of the administration, like Philip Cooney. Cooney, chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, stepped down on June 10 after being involved in a
damaging controversy over his deleting of dire climate change warnings from U.S. government reports. He wound up at ExxonMobil.
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This article first appeared at
Journalists Against Bush's B.S.
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