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September 12, 2005
Coming Soon to a Board of Directors Near You
CNN's saying Mike Brown's resigned and stressing that he wasn't fired.
Get that? He experienced a sudden, overwhelming, and totally random desire to spend more time with the horses. Bush is not admitting that his political patronage contributed to a massive disaster.
I have to admit, I don't understand the Bush administration's peculiar resistance to firing folks. Wouldn't the axing of Brown make Bush look decisive, in charge, willing to hold underlings accountable, aware of how poor a job FEMA had done? I know the Bushies are severely allergic to the slightest whiff of admitting fault, but you'd think they'd swallow that for short-term political gain. Weird place to pile your principles.
September 12, 2005 in Bush Administration | Permalink
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» Meet the New Boss, Better than the Old Boss from Minipundit
Mike Brown's resigned. That's good news by any standard, but the weird thing is that his successor has actual, you know, experience, making him the second FEMA director to be at all qualified. It's far too late, but it's a [Read More]
Tracked on Sep 12, 2005 8:25:59 PM
Comments
Probably it violates The Golden Rule of Bush's employment policies: As long as you're forever loyal to him, Bush will make your life easy. Break that rule, and what do the rest of the political crony appointees think? I may be next! I'm gonna squeal to the press now!
Brown, to the end, was faithful to the system. He got his reward.
Posted by: verplanck colvin | Sep 12, 2005 4:34:58 PM
To be fair, Josh Marshall points out that he was actually planning on leaving FEMA before the whole Katrina fiasco.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_11.php#006510
Posted by: Ugh | Sep 12, 2005 4:50:41 PM
It also violates a basic rule of cults of personality. The Leader can NEVER be wrong. Bush -- like Stalin and Kim Jong-Il, for example -- gets a lot of his political support from people who come close to venerating him. If he's wrong about anything, the whole house of cards collapses.
Posted by: bleh | Sep 12, 2005 4:52:37 PM
Firing folks means that you made a mistake in hiring them. And as we all know Bush is infallible; chosen by God to be president and, therefore, all of his decisions are the correct decisions - God's decisions. God can't be wrong, and neither can Bush.
Why is that so hard to understand?
Posted by: Zack | Sep 12, 2005 4:56:46 PM
I cringed at his statement that his resignation is "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president." Nothing to say about thousands of wrecked lives apparently.
Posted by: sprocket | Sep 12, 2005 5:02:25 PM
Self-righteousness, rigidity and pathological inability to admit failure are well-known personal characteristics of dry drunks. Just sayin'...
Posted by: Rob Salkowitz | Sep 12, 2005 5:17:26 PM
if you don't ever have to say you were wrong, you won't ever have to say you are sorry....
Bush is sorry, but he doesn't have to show regret, he's a sorry sack of shit.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Sep 12, 2005 5:30:48 PM
I have to admit, I don't understand the Bush administration's peculiar resistance to firing folks.
Because firing them admits that you made a mistake by hiring them in the first place. And we know that the Bush machine has a peculiar resistance to admitting they ever make mistakes.
I'd have to go back and look at the Clinton era, but I imagine a lot of resignations and "firings" occured without the firee admitting they were fired. But there's a lot of buck passing.
The weird thing is it never works. The DC press corps might not know much, but they know the buck-passing game. When JFK kept taking responsibility for things, his approval ratings would go up. Clearly there is some break-even point -- I've seen SNL skits mocking Carter's tendency to take responsibility for too many things. But the "I never make mistakes" business strikes me as very odd. But the Bush handlers believe it.
Posted by: Nick Beaudrot | Sep 12, 2005 6:37:01 PM
Come on . . . when you get to a certain level in any organization, sports, government, corporate, etc. the tendency is to let people "resign" rather than be fired. It is a common face saving technique and has nothing to do with the CEO, Owner, President not taking responsibility.
Normally, a resignation allows the person to retain certain economic benefits that might have been lost if they simply quit. However, I doubt Brown had a buyout option.
Posted by: Chris | Sep 12, 2005 11:03:51 PM
I remember Bill O'Reilly saying Bush did punish someone for Iraq - George Tenet got fired. Of course Tenet also resigned, and Bush awarded him a medal of freedom. The admin seems to do just enough for the knowledgeable elites to believe people are being held accountable... but little enough such that it never is outright saying to the populace that it made a mistake.
Unfortunately the increasing willingness of any Democrat to jump on an attack makes this a fine strategy. We're going to say Bush messed up whether or not he fires Brown (which is true, of course). And it's unlikely dems will give Bush an inch of credibility for saying he screwed up. So, why be realistic and moderate when he can keep the mystique of perfection alive and get the same results anyway?
Posted by: Tony Vila | Sep 13, 2005 10:55:45 AM
I know the Bushies are severely allergic to the slightest whiff of admitting fault...--Ezra
And we know that the Bush machine has a peculiar resistance to admitting they ever make mistakes.--Nick Beaudrot
if you don't ever have to say you were wrong, you won't ever have to say you are sorry....--JimPortlandOR
"To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility,"--President George W. Bush
Posted by: Fred Jones | Sep 14, 2005 7:51:52 AM
Fred, aside from the fact that this was a first for Bush (possibly a lifetime first), it's still a cop-out. If Bush was really the guy that his supporters think, he'd have said "We screwed up. I will fix it. I should have done better.". No 'to the extent that...' BS.
Posted by: Barry | Sep 14, 2005 10:37:19 AM
Bush, from the second debate:
"Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV."
Of course Bush is happy to fire people. Brown must have stated some unpleasant truth. I wonder what it was?
Posted by: Allen K. | Sep 14, 2005 4:31:07 PM
