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Brownie, aka former FEMA director Michael Brown, thinks the president jumped in too soon with disaster assistance to New Jersey and New York. No really, he does. Via Politico:
“In the context of the election, I simply said he should have waited,” Brown told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon. “The storm was still forming, people were debating whether it was going to be as bad as expected, or not, and I noted that the president should have let the governors and mayors deal with the storm until it got closer to hitting the coastal areas along the Washington, D.C.-New York City corridor.”
Brown on Monday called out the president for speaking to reporters at FEMA headquarters on Sunday night, when the bulk of the storm had yet to make landfall. “My guess is, he wants to get ahead of it — he doesn’t want anybody to accuse him of not being on top of it or not paying attention or playing politics in the middle of it,” Brown said in an interview with Westword.
Duh. Also because this isn't political, maybe? It's about people's lives, for God's sake.
But then a Twitter friend reminded me about the Bush disaster privatization venture, and suddenly it made sense to see Michael "heckuvajob" Brown hanging out all over the airwaves in a disaster that reminds us all of what a tragedy Hurricane Katrina was. A year ago, Stephen D. Foster, Jr. wrote this post about the Bush investments in private disaster recovery services.
Former Republican Governor Jeb Bush is set to lead a newly formed FOR-PROFIT natural disaster response company. According to the Maritime Executive, Bush’s newly created firm, Old Rhodes Holding LLC, joined forces with O’Brien’s Response Management, a subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings, to form a for-profit disaster response company.
“We are pleased to enter into this partnership with one of the leading response organizations in the United States, backed by SEACOR’s global network,” Bush said. “Together we look forward to helping a broader array of organizations and communities become more resilient through preparation, response, communication and recovery.”
Of course, this response team only helps people for a price. Rather than come to the aid of people affected by a natural disaster out of the kindness of their hearts, like FEMA and other organizations do, the response team led by the former Florida Governor will respond to disasters if the price is right. In other words, they’ll profit off of death and destruction.
So Mr. Heckuva Job Brownie, who managed to get it so very, very wrong during Hurricane Katrina thinks he's going to score a couple of political points and lay a foundation to pimp Jebbie's newest venture?
Yeah, I don't think so. The Obama administration's response to Brownie's insanity was for Craig Fugate to crisply respond with this:
"Better to be fast than to be late," Fugate said in an interview on NPR Tuesday morning.
You betcha.
