It’s hard to think of anyone more discredited as a disaster-response expert than George W. Bush’s FEMA director during Hurricane Katrina, Michael Brown. But Brown is a conservative willing to criticize President Obama and that’s all the cred needed for Fox News.
In case you missed it, Brown is the guy Bush made infamous when he tragically said, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” as New Orleans drowned. And even though Brown has claimed he’s not to blame, the disgrace has stuck.
Brown visited Your World last week to give a thin veneer of neutrality to what was really little more than an excuse for Fox to exploit the Louisiana floods as a cudgel against President Obama.
Brown started off by “proving” he’s got nothing against Obama. “I want to defend President Obama for not going down during the response phase. That’s when you’re trying to get people off of rooftops, that’s when you’re trying to get people out of harm’s way,” Brown said.
But then Brown moved in for the attack. “Now he could’ve gone to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans and made a statement there,” Brown said, “or, at the very least, what he should’ve done, in my opinion, is he should’ve walked off the golf course, gone to some office somewhere on Martha’s Vineyard and talked to the people of Louisiana, and assured them that he was sending Craig Fugate, he was sending Secretary Johnson, and that FEMA was going to do what it could do.”
He said the president “kind of botched it by not at least making a public appearance.”
While they were at it, host Stuart Varney figured he could get some mileage out of the California wildfires. He asked if the president should go there, too.
“It depends on whether or not the disaster is being handled well,” Brown said, noting the disruption such a visit would make in the emergency response.
But, sure enough, Brown moved on to criticize. “When something’s that big, 80,000 people have been evacuated, it’s good to hear from the president. Go to the Oval Office, go somewhere and make a statement,” he said.
Watch it above, from the August 19 Your World.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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