When Mike Brown resigned from FEMA, he kept an important streak alive among Bush staffers: no one is ever shown the door for incompetence.
As near as I can tell, there have been four high-profile dismissals since Bush took five years ago:
* Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was forced out in December 2002 when Bush needed a scapegoat for poor economic performance. O’Neill’s big mistake was telling the president the truth about the White House’s misguided tax policies.
* White House Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsey was shown the door when he publicly contradicted the president’s message about the costs of the war in Iraq. Lindsey said the war would cost the United States between $100 billion and $200 billion, while the rest of the Bush gang insisted the war would largely finance itself
* Former Army Gen. and Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki received less-than-lovely parting gifts from the Bush gang when he told Congress in February 2003 that it would take “several hundred thousand troops” to occupy post-war Iraq. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz went after Shinseki with a vengeance, arguing that the general was “wildly off the mark.”
* Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke got the boot when he urged the White House not to invade Iraq and insisted that they focus on Afghanistan, Al Queda, and Osama bin Laden.
These four have one thing in common — they told the truth and got punished for it, because the truth was inconsistent with the White House line.
So, what about Mike Brown? He lied on his resume, and was tragically incompetent, but he stayed on message and kept his job. Even today, the official line is that Brown was under no pressure to resign and continued to enjoy the White House’s support.
The message to federal employees is everywhere is clear: it doesn’t matter how you do your job, or even if you’re qualified for your job. Just remain loyal and tell the president what he wants to hear and you’ll be safely employed. Until January 2009, that is.