I don’t know whether or not to laugh, or begin packing my bags to move to Canada before Big Brother finally succeeds.
Via the Washington Post:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s No. 2 official apologized yesterday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters while real reporters listened on a telephone [...]

UPDATE: WCBU’s Jonathan Ahl has a very plausible (and non-scandalous) explanation in the comments section.
UPDATE 2: OK, I’ll admit it (again). Not a huge scoop. Get off my back. Everyone is a critic.
I am baffled by this. I debated putting on a reporter’s hat and making a bunch of phone calls.
But I didn’t [...]

Wisely, a group of Peoria firefighters are getting ready to evacuate themselves should Rita take a turn toward Louisiana. That looks to be what is happening.
Be careful guys. We are proud of you all, but upu need to mind your own safety as well.
peoria,fighters,local 50,Roy Modglin,rita,katrina,hurricane,fema

katrina,bush,disaster response,fema,editorial cartoon

One of the knocks against President Clinton was that he didn’t fire Attorney General Janet Reno after she took responsibility after a tank attack on the Branch Davidian compound n Waco ended in flames and mass death.
I know wonder what those same conservative critics think should happen to President Bush now that he says
[...]

Via MSNBC: Bush chooses new FEMA director:
The White House picked a top FEMA official with three decades of firefighting experience to be FEMA’s new director, senior administration sources said Monday.
Actually, this guy is their second choice. But the guy who runs the Westminister Dog Show turned them down. So they had to settle for someone [...]

bush,disaster,fema,michael brown

Will someone please explain to me why stupid stuff like this keeps happening.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, B.J.
katrina,fema,michael brown,warning,president bush,disaster preparedness

Again, via Archpundit:
When Brown left the IAHA four years ago, he was, among other things, a failed former lawyer–a man with a 20-year-old degree from a semi-accredited law school who hadn’t attempted to practice law in a serious way in nearly 15 years and who had just been forced out of his job in the [...]

From Peoria City Hall:
The City of Peoria has been notified that there will be no planes coming into Peoria until Sunday September 11th 2005. However this notice is subject to change upon notification from FEMA, Media will be advised if there is any change to the Sunday notification.
The reception center at City of Refuge Worship [...]

FEMA’s response to the disaster is almost farsical, were it not so maddening:

If you ask me, this guy is toast:

As I’ve said, there’s lots of blame to go around for the post-hurricane misery on the Gulf Coast. I’ve leveled a lot of blame at local officials for not doing more to evacuate and for not providing adequate policing after the flooding.
But the Bush administration — especially FEMA — deserves some of the blame:
When Wal-Mart [...]