Michael Brown -- Villain or Victim, or is He Just Fredo

News Item: FEMA Dumps Brown as Katrina Relief Chief [here]

The Bush administration dumped FEMA Director Michael Brown as commander of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts Friday...

Brown, who had come to personify a relief operation widely panned as bumbling, will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen. Allen had been in charge of relief, recovery and rescue efforts for New Orleans.

Tip O'Neill famously said, "all politics is local." Well, as far as the news media is concerned he couldn't be more wrong. American politics revolves around a single pole-star; the President. He [or someday she] serves as the dramatic center or the looming backdrop for every story told -- and lets face it the news media are in the business of telling stories, not conveying information.

Stories require dramatic structure, clearly-defined characters who fit pre-determined roles, and a clear resolution. There must be heroes and, of course there must be villains and victims. Michael Brown is this week's villain, but may turn out to be its victim.

Brown has widely been characterized as a miscreant who lied and schmoozed his way to a high-level job which he was incompetent to handle. Democrats developed this story-line and broadcast it widely in a compliant media, and in response Republicans brilliantly orchestrated Brown's removal. The media have been full of images that made clear what Brown's fate would be as the story developed. First there was his clueless performance in a series national media interviews which opened him to ridicule, then there were Michael Chertoff's appearances over-praising Brown [don't worry Fredo, you're family] to Bush's negative body language as Brown prattled on about his agency's efforts [that's right Fredo, just get in the boat], to Cheney's visit to "review" the recovery efforts, to the final removal of Brown from the scene.

It was all well-choreographed. The Democrats attacked him as a hapless examplar of the Bush administration's assumed incompetence and of the dangers of Bush's cronyism. Later he was attacked as a fraud, a theme picked up both by Democrats who wished to further discredit the administration and by Republicans who wished to portray Bush as having been betrayed by men he trusted. But whatever the line of attack, the real target was always Bush.

Then there was a second narrative -- one advanced by current and former FEMA officials. This held that the agency had achieved a high degree of professionalism and efficacy during the 1990's, but that administrative reforms after 9/11 and the haplessness of Bush's political appointees [Joe Allbaugh and particularly Michael Brown] had undermined that professionalism and left FEMA unable to operate effectively in an emergency. What they demanded was a return to the good old days before 9/11.

But was Michael Brown really that incompetent or dupicitous? Probably not. The charges of resume-padding amount to little more than two words. He represented himself as once having been "assistant mayor" instead of the more accurate "assistant to the mayor." Not much of an offense by Washington standards were resumes reign supreme. And, what about Brown's performance as FEMA director?

There the gold standard is the reign of James Lee Witt, a Clinton appointee, who has been widely, even extravagently, praised both by the press and by FEMA professionals. Witt presided through FEMA's glory days, when it had cabinet-level rank, wide ranging authority, big budgets, and a considerable degree of administrative autonomy. Ahhh -- a Washington bureaucrat's wet dream.

And while Witt reigned FEMA performed well, responding with increasing effectiveness to a number of emergencies. And it continued to perform well under his successor, Joe Allbaugh, a Bush appointee. Then came 9/11 and a panicked Congress forced a reluctant Bush to swallow the Homeland Security mega-authority [proposed by Joe Lieberman], and in the process FEMA lost its cabinet rank, some of its responsibilities, much of its budget, and all of its autonomy. Disgusted pros resigned or retired in droves. The glory days were over and resentment against the political class reigned at the reduced FEMA.

Brown, recommended as a replacement by Allbaugh, inherited this diminished and resentful agency, but [and this is little noted by the media] under his directorship FEMA continued to respond effectively to national emergencies. In 2004 alone FEMA organized effective responses to four [count 'em, FOUR] major hurricane disasters. And that was on Brown's watch. In other words, despite the administrative reorganization, the budget cuts, and Brown's appointment, FEMA continued to operate at about the same high level of efficiency as it had back in Witt's glory days.

Then came Katrina and everything fell apart. To be fair we must note that at no time during Witt's tenure had FEMA encountered anything on a scale comparable to Katrina. Here FEMA faced a series of major challenges that taken together dwarfed anything the agency had previously encountered. First there was a category 4 hurricane which did considerable damage; then came the flooding; then the breakdown of civil order; then the failure of local and state authorities who were more interested in fighting turf battles than in responding to the building crisis, and who not only refused to cooperate with federal authorities, but actively obstructed them. It is not too much to suggest that even the Sainted James Lee might have been overwhelmed by this confluence of crises.

So what do we have now? A political attack aimed at discrediting the President, and a bureaucratic attack aimed at restoring FEMA's cabinet status, budget and independence. Both have as their focus Michael Brown. And to add to this we have an administration that seeks to deflect attacks against the President by finding a fall-guy [oh Fredo, could you come up to the lake for a few days, Mike would like to talk to you]. Brown has been doomed for some time, and in the process of relieving him politicians and bureaucrats have slimed him and destroyed his reputation [nothing new there -- beltway denizens, as they constantly remind us, play "hardball."]

What to make of it?

1) The political attacks on Bush are not likely to be very effective. Last time I looked, Bush wasn't on the ballot in '06 and, as Newton Emerson points out brilliantly in the Irish Times, the actual Republican candidates for office have little to fear from Katrina [read him here, hat tip Mick Fealty]. As I noted in an earlier post [here] the Democrats' prime concern here is in firming up the black vote which Bush had been eroding.

2) The bureaucratic attempt to turn back the clock to the 90's is unlikely to succeed. 9/11 happened and there's no going back. Terrorism is here to stay for the forseeable future and, for all its prominence, Katrina is literally a once-in-a-century event. You have to go all the way back to the Galveston hurricane of 1900 for anything comparable. Whatever administrative reorganizations take place are likely to be more cosmetic than substantive. DHS is not going to be disbanded.

3) FEMA will continue to do its normal thing, which is to respond effectively to quoditian disasters [if that isn't an oxymoron], hurricanes, earthquakes, forest fires, and the like. And the agency will continue to do a good job.

And as for Michael Brown -- He can commiserate with Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Labor who was acquitted of corruption charges after being slimed by the media, who famously asked, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

UPDATE:

AP is reporting:

DENVER -- Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown sent a candid e-mail to family and friends this week as he was becoming the center of criticism of the handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

"I don't mind the negative press (well, actually, I do, but I try to ignore it) but it is really wearing out the family," Brown wrote. "No wonder people don't go into public service. This country is devouring itself, the 24-hour news cycle is numbing our ability to think for ourselves," the Rocky Mountain News reported Saturday.

Brown was relieved of his command of the onsite relief efforts Friday amid increasing criticism over the sluggishness of the agency's response and questions over his background.

"It's horrible," said Mary Ann Karns, an Oklahoma lawyer who once worked with Brown in the Edmond, Okla., city government and got the e-mail addressed. "He does not deserve this as a human being."

I agree.

Read it here.

Photo, WaPo

UPDATE:

Monday afternoon -- just breaking. Brown has resigned as head of FEMA. Is anyone surprised? [sorry Fredo, it's not personal -- just business].

Appointment of a successor from inside the ranks of FEMA is obviously an attempt to quiet the professional critics, but they're not going to be satisfied until they regain cabinet status and budgetary independence, and that's not gonna happen.