The Washington Independent » Incompetence

Ex-FEMA Head Michael Brown Evacuated from Colorado Wildfire

Wendy Norris — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:41:45 +0000

Hurricane Katrina victims take note. Michael Brown is safe.

A series of wind-whipped wildfires north of Boulder, Colo., have forced the evacuation of more than 11,500 residents — including Brown, the vilified ex-Federal Emergency Management Agency head.

Brown was lauded by President Bush for doing a “heckuva job” in the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, which took the lives of 1,836 people and caused more than $81 billion in damage. Brown resigned in disgrace and the event looms as a national turning point against the Bush administration.

This week, PBS’s “Frontline” broadcast a heart-wrenching investigative report, “The Old Man and the Storm,” about struggling post-Katrina rebuilding efforts more than three years after the massive hurricane destroyed much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

FEMA has promised to pay up to 75 percent of firefighting costs, according to a Daily Camera story.

The latest images and ground reports via Twitter can be found at twemes.com/boulderfire.

h/t Westword

Wendy Norris is a reporter for TWI’s sister site, The Colorado Independent.

Wait, I Thought He Couldn’t Remember Anything?

Matthew DeLong — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:41:53 +0000

The Wall Street Journal plays “Where are they now?” with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

WASHINGTON — Alberto Gonzales, who has kept a low profile since resigning as attorney general nearly 16 months ago, said he is writing a book to set the record straight about his controversial tenure as a senior official in the Bush administration.

It’s a miracle! Though he has not yet found a publisher, Gonzales has found a cure for the debilitating, buffoonish strain of amnesia he contracted while hard at work overseeing the politicization of the Justice Department and drafting memos to justify torture (his role in which, according to the Journal, Gonzales now downplays).

It’s called unemployment.

The Harvard Law School graduate, onetime corporate lawyer and Texas judge also hasn’t been able to land a job. He has delivered a few paid speeches, done some mediation work and plans to do some arbitration, but said law firms have been “skittish” about hiring him.

Gee, I can’t imagine why.

One has to wonder how much Gonzales can really say about his various controversies without possibly opening himself up to perjury charges after he denied having any recollection of much of his tenure as attorney general during congressional hearings. He is a lawyer, after all, so we can probably expect another boring, self-serving book.

Also worth noting: During his interview with the Journal, Gonzales took the opportunity to pity himself.

Mr. Gonzales said that “for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”

If so, that’s probably one casualty we can all live with.