Democrats Tell Ex-FEMA Head: Keep Your Chin Up, 'Brownie'

Feb. 10, 2006 — -- For months after Hurricane Katrina, many Democrats gleefully took every opportunity to remind reporters and the public of President Bush's jovial and chummy nickname for the disgraced former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- "Brownie."

Just after the storm struck, Bush wrapped his arm around "Brownie," and proclaimed he was "doin' a heck of a job."

As the post-Katrina crisis worsened, Democrats and other administration critics seized on the nickname and phrase and called for Brown's resignation. They also maintained that Brown hadn't been qualified to head FEMA to begin with -- his previous job had been heading the Arabian Horse Association. Brown finally resigned on September 26.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, even introduced a bill this past November that would require minimum job requirements for political appointees to the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA.

So it was a little odd at Senate hearings on Capitol Hill today to see the very same Frank Lautenberg telling Brown: "Keep your chin up and fight back. You're not here to be the designated scapegoat."

Brown had just emerged from a heated and scathing exchange with Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who told Brown to "put a mirror in front of your face so you can recognize your own inadequacies."

In the six months since Katrina, after all, Brown has been cut loose by the administration and has become somewhat of a public pariah, although he's still linked to the White House as its guy on the ground right after Katrina hit.

Today was Brown's turn to fire back. He appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Reform as a private citizen, out from under the protective umbrella of "executive privilege" usually invoked by the White House to keep internal communications private.

And while Brown lauded the performance of both Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Chief of Staff Andrew Card, he also said he'd told them and the president the day before the hurricane hit that the government was facing a "catastrophe within a catastrophe." Then on Monday, August 29, the day after Katrina made landfall, Brown said he told staffers at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that the levies had broken and "our worst fears are coming true."

Still, he insisted, FEMA was not given the resources it needed to do its job.

Brown discussed when he spoke to the president's staffers and what he told them during Katrina. He was sometimes unsure who exactly he'd talked to, or when exactly the president had been on the line, however -- an oddity several senators remarked on.

"It's because I was talking to a lot of people and generally telling everybody the same thing," Brown said. He added that he didn't want to appear arrogant, but he was talking to the president a lot at that point.

Brown reserved his ire for Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, saying the new secretary second-guessed Brown's decision-making in the critical moments. It was indicative, Brown said, of the "clash of cultures" that developed when the newly created Department of Homeland Security enveloped FEMA in 2002.

Before Chertoff took charge of DHS, Brown said he was better at running FEMA. "I succeeded in Florida in 2004 and with the Space Shuttle disaster," he said. "But DHS was an additional layer of bureaucracy. The way I got around that was talking to the White House," implying that under former Secretary Tom Ridge, Brown had been free to manage emergencies without going through the bureaucracy of DHS.

During Katrina, Brown claimed, the White House told him requests had to go through Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security.

Today Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, defended Chertoff and chastised Brown. "The reason he didn't know what was going on was because you didn't feel it would do any good to tell him," he said.

Brown is not making friends among all Democrats, however. One of the most outspoken critics of the federal response, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said today, "For months, this administration pointed fingers at others for their bungling. Now they're pointing fingers at one another. All the while, FEMA remains anemic and the rebuilding they are managing remains inefficient, ineffective and slow."

Today's hearing was the latest in a five-month investigation by the Senate's Homeland Security committee.

Tuesday, the committee will grill Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who remains a member of the administration.

It remains to be seen if Republicans will lay in to Chertoff as they did Brown, and if Democrats tell Chertoff, who was in Atlanta at a conference in the days after Katrina, to keep his chin up, too.