It's AMAZING the extent of Bush's habit of rewarding crony's with high level jobs. A few short months ago, this was the scenario:Marty J. Bahamonde —was not even supposed to be there. He had been sent in advance of the storm and had been ordered to leave as it bore down, but could not because of the clogged roads. Michael Brown, the head of FEMA, was known to have made it to Baton Rouge but seemed out of reach.

On Wednesday, Aug. 31, with tens of thousands trapped in the Superdome and looting out of control in the parts of the city still above water, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown directly: ''I know you know, the situation is past critical…Hotels are kicking people out, thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water.''' The response, when it came several hours later, was from a Brown aide, and did not address the warnings, but noted Brown’s desire to appear on a television program that evening. It included this key caveat: ''It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner.'

A week later, Brown would be replaced as on-site manager of the disaster. Blamed for his role in one of the largest domestic debacles in American history, Brown was still thinking of his own comfort: "I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep," he told AP. In the midst of America’s worst natural (and manmade) disaster, it became clear that Brown was indeed lost in Margaritaville. Surprised something like this could happen? Look at Brownie, and HIS qualifications The investigators at Real News.com delved behind the secret donations that allowed unqualified people into high level positions.
According to the highly qualified journalists at Real News, these crony appointments are pervasive throughout the Bush administration. They say:"What has grown all too apparent in the months since Katrina is that much of the Bush-appointed federal leadership is every bit as inept and unqualified as Brown. Each new crisis seems to expose still more cronyism and patronage at the very top of the country’s leading agencies. The Medicare administrator Thomas Scully came from a job with the hospital association, stayed just long enough to pass the controversial and messy if business-friendly Medicare drug benefit, then left to become a drug industry lobbyist. Other stories are emerging at departments ranging from the Small Business Administration to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. And the head of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy had no prior experience in government contracting; he has since been arrested in connection with the sprawling corruption investigation surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

From Harriet Miers (a Supreme Court nominee with no judicial experience) to Julie Myers (a virtual government neophyte named to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency), Bush has set aside principles of sound governance to reward loyal operatives and shore up personal and party alliances. Sometimes, his tactics are transparent. Miers was a longtime legal adviser and trouble-shooter to Bush; and Myers, the niece of the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had at the time of her nomination recently married the chief of staff of her boss-to-be, Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff.

We still do not know the true extent to which the government has been filled with Michael Browns. This is in part because of the media." So despite the fact that this link is eight pages long, I'm going to attempt to do what Bush does...I'm going to cherry pick the facts that I think you will want to read; however, I also beg that you read the link independantly in case I've missed information and so you can form your own opinion as well.
*Michael Brown should never have been holding any major government post. Prior to joining FEMA, his professional pinnacle had been to serve as an inspector of Arabian Horse judges; his highest governmental job had been an assistant to a city manager in a small Oklahoma city decades ago. He was also a failed lawyer and exhibited little success throughout his adult life.
* Joe Allbaugh--Bush political operative, another brash and powerful and 'loyal friend' as well as a little-known Bush confidant who preceded Brown as FEMA director set Brown up to get that difficult and highly responsible post. When Allbaugh came to Washington, he brought Brown with him and rapidly promoted him until Brown was positioned to take over the agency. He made it happen. "When pressed, the taciturn Allbaugh tersely replied that Brown was a lifelong friend in whom he had confidence. To this moment, that has remained the official, indeed only, explanation of how and why Michael Brown was running FEMA when Hurricane Katrina struck." according to Real News. There's even more than that little inkling of information. Real news did what real journalists are suppose to do! They investigated. This is what they said:"But a Real News Project investigation, encompassing scores of interviews and hundreds of documents, has uncovered another reality. It begins with this astonishing fact: nearly all of Joe Allbaugh's friends and acquaintances say they had never heard of Michael Brown, never met him, never even seen the two men in each other's presence. To them, Michael Brown is a complete stranger. Allbaugh's explanation of why he chose Brown as his heir apparent at FEMA baffles one and all.

The truth, RealNews has learned, is that the relationship between the two is a decades-long hidden partnership designed to advance both men's business and personal interests. By all appearances, that relationship encompassed Allbaugh's decision to ask Bush to let him run FEMA, and then his decision to turn the place over to Brown so he could profit from their ties.

Indeed, as soon as Allbaugh left the agency, he began cashing in. Today, both Allbaugh and Brown are consultants, making money off their connections at FEMA and in the administration—tattered and tarnished though their legacies may be. And now FEMA is staffed by others put into position by the two men and run by David Paulison, best known for having advised Americans to stock up on duct tape as protection against future terrorist attacks." One can not be surprised that the mess that New Orleans is in is VERY much Bush's fault when he shows such poor judgement in chosing his high level posts. The relationships between the people in our highest offices are getting closer and closer, husband, encouraging cheerleader, dinner partner... And our governments performance is suffering GREATLY for it! Real News describes this entangled relationship of croynism:"The Real News Project has uncovered documents showing that, in the early 80s, as Brown was finding his professional footing and Allbaugh was already rising in the Oklahoma Republican apparatus, Allbaugh moved into an Oklahoma City house next door to the brother of Michael Brown's wife, Tamara. Bill Oxley, Michael Brown and Tamara Oxley Brown had all grown up together in the small Oklahoma Panhandle town of Guymon."In a highly detailed listing Real News describes the money mover and shakers and the lobbyist who funded the Republican party since Reagan times through George Bush's tenure in office. When they say to follow the money, they certainly mean, "FOLLOW THE MONEY!" Gaining more and more power as the connections and money became broader, Allbaugh eventually joined the Bush gubernatorial campaign. And if this doesn't beat all, he became the person who "mediated the strong personalities of Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. To Bush’s Brain and Bush’s Mouth was added Bush’s Muscle." And Harriet Meiers was the muscle behind Bush's legal team. They were fiercely loyal and kept Bush's failures out of the public eye. Real News provides this information:"In 1999, Allbaugh left the governor’s office to take over the daily management of Bush’s presidential campaign. He headed up a staff of 180, controlled spending, and spoke with Bush several times a day.

One potential problem facing the campaign was the rumor that Bush’s father had pulled strings to get his candidate son out of Vietnam service and into a safe Texas Air National Guard unit in 1968. There were even reports that Bush went AWOL long before his compulsory flying days were up.

The key players in keeping the lid on the National Guard story were Allbaugh and Miers. In 2004, a year before Bush nominated Miers for the Supreme Court, Allbaugh told The New York Times, “She’s the kind of person you want in your corner when all the chips are being played.” Assigned to “investigate” Bush’s Guard service, Miers gave the governor a clean bill of health.

As part of his job, Allbaugh communicated directly with Adjutant General Daniel James III, the head of the Texas National Guard (later appointed by President George W. Bush to run the federal Air National Guard). What remains unclear is whether he ordered James to dispose of any old Bush military files that might prove embarrassing, an order former Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, head of a Guard efficiency task force, claims to have heard Allbaugh issue in a conversation on James’s speakerphone. Whatever was or was not done, the unexplained gaps in Bush’s National Guard service never became a central topic in the 2000 election. With his “iron triangle” of Rove on strategy, Hughes on P.R., and Allbaugh as the enforcer (plus an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court), Bush triumphed."After the 2000 election the enforcer, as he was known, was given the job in FEMA where he was known to bully anyone in his path. It was at this point that he eliminated any competent people who opposed him and instead replaced them with his own. One of these replacements was Michael Brown. Real News reports this history:"At FEMA, as throughout the administration, the foxes had taken over the henhouse and were partying up. Out the door, one by one, went the experienced disaster-relief managers, and in came the political opportunists and the industry lobbyists. “Many of their skilled management team has left,” says Kanstoroom. “You’ve got a train running down the tracks with nobody driving it.”

In retrospect, Allbaugh’s most damaging accomplishment at FEMA was pre-positioning Michael Brown as his successor. Allbaugh included him in all key deliberations, even naming him Chief Operating Officer, and Brown’s influence was apparent to all. Within six months of Brown’s arrival as general counsel of FEMA, Allbaugh was ready to promote him. First, though, he had to oust his current acting deputy director, John Magaw—a former director of the U.S. Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, whom Clinton had placed in charge of coordinating domestic-terrorism efforts for FEMA.

“One day, Mr. Allbaugh came in and said, ‘I know you’ve got these other things to do. I’m going to ask Mr. Brown to be deputy,” recalls Magaw, who promptly returned to the domestic-terror position assigned him by Clinton. The timing was remarkable. Just a week prior to September 11, 2001, Allbaugh removed one of the most experienced men in government and replaced him with one of the least experienced." And so the story of lobbyist, croynism, and money funneling has created the darkest most incompetent administration we've ever seen.

It's a great shame that we are forced to look at these people KNOWING "NO, these are NOT the best our country has to offer. NO we don't feel safe with these incompetant opportunists." How does one even BRING oneself to accept a job for which one is that grossly unqualified?Though today, we heard more information from Brownie that I posted earlier, this article was later brought to my attention. I had not seen it before and thought all of us needed to learn about this history even while we watch the hearings going on today. Please don't short yourself out. Read the whole link--all eight pages of it.
It sure beats me how they can do this, but then, I have a little thing these people seem to be missing.... Integrity and a concern for those OTHER than myself.

nolies32fouettes – Fri, 02/10/2006 – 5:07pm