In case you missed it, former FEMA Director Mike Brown seems intent on slowly rehabilitating his, shall we say, tarnished image, starting with a lengthy chat with the New York Times. But as The New Republic’s Jason Zengerle noted, Brown may have made things slightly worse for himself and his former colleagues.
Brown seemed intent on staying on-message — he praised Bush and blamed state and local officials for delays, as all Republicans have been told to do. But it’s when he started trying to defend his own actions that he got into trouble.
First, Brown addressed his nationally-televised remarks in which he said he didn’t know about people suffering at the convention center.
Mr. Brown said that in one much-publicized gaffe – his repeated statement on live television on Thursday night, Sept. 1, that he had just learned that day of thousands of people at New Orleans’s convention center without food or water – “I just absolutely misspoke.”
That was quite a gaffe. Go watch it again — does it sound like he “absolutely misspoke,” or that he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
Second, and perhaps more important, Brown described his response to events shortly after New Orleans started falling apart at the seams.
[T]he Superdome was degenerating into “gunfire and anarchy,” and on Tuesday the FEMA staff and medical team in New Orleans called to say they were leaving for their own safety.
That night, Mr. Brown said, he called Mr. Chertoff and the White House again in desperation. “Guys, this is bigger than what we can handle,” he told them, he said. “This is bigger than what FEMA can do. I am asking for help.”
In other words, shortly after the crisis began, Brown was requesting assistance from his boss (Chertoff) and his boss’ boss (Bush).
Except this isn’t what the White House wants Brown to say at all.
To hear Brown tell it, officials on the scene couldn’t possibly keep up with the scope of the problem, which is why he urged a better (and bigger) federal response. But if that’s true, doesn’t that make the Bush administration’s delays look worse?
No wonder the Bush gang is pushing back against Brown.
A senior administration official said Wednesday night that White House officials recalled the conversations with Mr. Brown but did not believe they had the urgency or desperation he described in the interview.
Is Brown subtly trying to shift the blame back onto the Bush gang and away from him? Or is he just inept at sticking to Rove’s talking points?
Note to Brown: stop talking to reporters. It’s not helping.