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Pastimes : Hurricane and Severe Weather Tracking -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (3303)	9/5/2005 12:22:14 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 26021

London's media isn't buying a lot of the spin..... ________________________________________________ Bush team tries to pin blame on local officials Julian Borger in Washington Monday September 5, 2005 The Guardian Bush administration officials yesterday blamed state and local officials for the delays in bringing relief to New Orleans, as George Bush struggled to fend off the most serious political crisis of his presidency. His top officials continued to be pilloried on television talk shows by liberals and conservatives alike, but the White House began to show signs of an evolving strategy to prevent the relief fiasco from eclipsing the president's second term. The outrage over the government's relief effort has hit Mr Bush at a time when he is already weakened by the gruelling war in Iraq. The threat is not only to his place in history; it could also cripple his second-term agenda, undermining his plans to privatise the social security system and to end inheritance tax. Mr Bush also faces a much more difficult task in appointing an ideological conservative to take the supreme court seat of William Rehnquist, who died on Saturday. The White House drew encouragement from an initial poll suggesting most Republican voters were sticking by him, and his supporters also pointed to Mr Bush's track record of recovering from mistakes. His initial response to the September 11 attacks was also sharply criticised. With that in mind, the first plank in the political recovery strategy has been to try to make up for lost time. On Saturday Mr Bush ordered 7,000 more troops to the Gulf coast. As important as the content of the speech was its sombre tone. It was clear the White House realised that making a joke about his young hell-raising days in New Orleans in the course of a flying visit to the flooded city on Friday, was a mistake that reinforced allegations he had failed to take the disaster seriously enough. The White House also announced yesterday that the president had cancelled public engagements, including a meeting with the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. Instead, he was due to return to the scene of the devastation. The second element of the White House plan is to insist, in an echo of the September 11 attacks, that the scale of the disaster, the combination of a hurricane and the collapse of the levee system around New Orleans, could not have been foreseen. Mr Bush was castigated for saying on Wednesday: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees". It was pointed out that there had been a string of investigations and reports in recent years which had predicted the disaster almost exactly. Nevertheless, administration officials stuck to the line yesterday. In a string of television interviews, Michael Chertoff, the head of the homeland security department, called the situation an "ultra-catastrophe", as if the hurricane and flood were unrelated events. "That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," he said. The third element in the administration's political response has been to counter-attack against the blame directed at the federal authorities, particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and its parent body, the homeland security department. In his weekend radio address, Mr Bush implied many of the problems had been caused by lower levels of government. The scale of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable." Unnamed White House officials, quoted in the Washington Post, directed blame at the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, for being slow to call for outside help and to declare a state of emergency. Ms Blanco, meanwhile, resisted a federal attempt to take over control of local police and national guard units - an attempt some Louisiana officials saw as a political manoeuvre that would help blame the weak response in the first week on the state. The depth of America's polarisation could prove a bulwark preventing Mr Bush's political support from collapsing altogether. A poll by the Washington Post and ABC News on Friday night, showed that, of those questioned, 46% approved of the way the president had handled the relief efforts while 47% disapproved. The spotlight began to turn yesterday on Michael Brown, the head of Fema, who had minimal emergency management experience before joining the agency in 2001, and had spent the previous 10 years organising horse shows for the International Arabian Horse Association. Press reports claimed he had had to leave that job because of questions about his performance. guardian.co.uk

To: energyplay who wrote (3303)	9/5/2005 12:32:22 AM
From: Frederick Langford	Respond to of 26021

Posted on Sun, Sep. 04, 2005 FEMA leader has unlikely background The current head of FEMA has a background that little prepared him for a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. BY MATT STEARNS AND SETH BORENSTEIN mstearns@krwashington.com WASHINGTON - From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted ''czar'' of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina. But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn't know that thousands of evacuees were trapped at New Orleans' convention center without food or water. ''He's done a hell of a job, because I'm not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm,'' said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief who oversaw emergency response during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. ``The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience.'' Brown ran for Congress in 1988 and won 27 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent Glenn English, and spent the 1990s as judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. His job was to ensure that horse-show judges followed the rules and to investigate allegations against those suspected of cheating. ''I wouldn't have regarded his position in the horse industry as a platform to where he is now,'' said Tom Connelly, a former association president. Brown's ticket to FEMA was Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and an old friend of Brown's in Oklahoma. Brown told several association officials that if Bush were elected, he'd be in line for a good job. When Allbaugh, who managed Bush's campaign, took over FEMA in 2001, he took Brown with him as general counsel. Brown practiced law in Enid, Okla., a city of about 45,000, during the 1980s and was counsel to a group of businesses run by a well-known Enid family. Before that, he worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., and was an aide in the state Legislature. From 1991 until 2000, Brown earned about $100,000 a year as the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian horse association. The suspensions Brown delivered to those suspected of cheating resulted in several lawsuits. Although the association won the suits, they were expensive to defend, and Brown became a controversial figure. ''It was positive controversy,'' Connelly said. ``It got word out that we were serious about enforcing our rules.'' But he said Brown could be ''abrasive.'' Others were less charitable. ''He just wouldn't follow instruction,'' said Bill Pennington, another former association president. ``Mike was bullheaded, and he was gonna do it his way. Period.'' At FEMA, Brown rose from general counsel to deputy director within a year. Bush named him to succeed Allbaugh in February 2003. With FEMA now part of the Department of Homeland Security, Brown's title is undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response. Brown's old friend Andrew Lester, an Oklahoma lawyer, said the progression from horse shows to hurricanes was natural. ''A lot of what he had to do was stand in the breach in difficult, controversial situations,'' Lester said. ``Which I think would well prepare him for his work at FEMA.'' Despite the withering criticism and a promised congressional investigation of FEMA's performance, Brown still has the support of his most important constituent. In Mobile, Ala., on Friday, Bush said the response to Katrina was unsatisfactory. But he had nothing but praise for FEMA's director. ''Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job,'' the president said. miami.com Fred

To: energyplay who wrote (3303)	9/5/2005 2:15:45 AM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26021

>>GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.<< Nonsense...he has a perfectly ironed buttoned down Oxford polo shirt. Appeared to be the only "qualification" needed for the gig, IMHO....