While Roberts decisions over the next 20-30 years will certainly impact the nation, his actions will never directly impact people's lives and livelihoods as greatly as the FEMA director's actions do.

I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. The CJ does in fact impact people's lives, and on a much greater and wider scale. Indeed many would argue that the Supreme Court helped determine the president, who in turn appointed FEMA (not to mntion launched a massive war). Indeed, the CJ's importance cannot be overstated.

I agree completely that both branches of government (the Senate and the President) utter failed to appoint a competent FEMA director. These appointments are not merely political awards with cushy offices; as is now grossly apparent, the performance of a director of a top government agency can have a profound influence on many people. Michael Brown is not the only obvious case, either.

Josh, when I said the FEMA director affects people's lives, I meant whether they live or die. And although SCOTUS hears cases involving the death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion, I think most people would agree that most SCOTUS decisions are not what you'd call matters of life or death.

Matt Yglesias would probably reply to this post by linking to his TAP article saying that Brownie is by no means the only Bush appointee who is probably significantly underqualified for the job he's been appointed to.

This reply, on the other hand, would say that at some level it doesnt' matter who you put at the top, as long as there are competent people telling the political appointee what to do...and those people have been leaving fema "in droves".

Brown may be a convenient scapegoat. Check out this Knight-Ridder story:

Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows 

WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.
MORE...

Josh, when I said the FEMA director affects people's lives, I meant whether they live or die. And although SCOTUS hears cases involving the death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion, I think most people would agree that most SCOTUS decisions are not what you'd call matters of life or death.

I think myself and most members of the pro-life community would consider the Court's abortion jurisprudence a matter of life or death.

Arkansas Republican Governor Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, conservative evangelical Christian and possible 2008 GOP presidential candidate, has blasted FEMA for the magnitude of its ignorance about operations. Huckabee indicated he was totally confounded to be asked by FEMA whether Arkansas had accepted any evacuees. He told FEMA that the state had accepted 50,000 and he would be willing to tell them where they were in case FEMA wanted to know.

FEMA? asked Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and Oklahoma Baptists to spend big bucks and enlist thousands of volunteer hours for evacuation of 3,000 to the Baptists' substantial Falls Creek youth camp. However after many delays, but the camp fully prepped and operational, FEMA finally told Governor Henry his help wasn't needed.

It is inevitable that there will be some poor communications and coordination, but the scale of this fiasco just seems enormous to me.

There is news of hope. Many thanks to the numerous John Brown University students, churches and other organizations who have helped with efforts at the Arkansas Baptist Assembly evacuation site at Siloam Springs.

I think part of the explanation is that there are certain jobs in government that are just viewed, by both parties, as jobs that you hand out like candy to those who worked for your campaign or donated money to it. The FEMA job is one of them (actually, several of them, since the top 8 positions are all political appointees). I bet if you looked at it, you'd find hundreds of positions filled by people who know nothing about the job they're given, all of whom were given little more than a cursory confirmation hearing and a voice vote. And that certainly isn't new with the Bush administration.

Although FEMA wasn't without problems under his leadership, I believe that Jamie Lee Witt, who was both politically connected and had real emergency management experience, did an admirable job during the Clinton administration.

If the Democrats had done a thorough investigation of Brownie and then put up a fight about his qualifications or lack thereof, they would have been labeled "obstructionists".

Precisely, Doug. The screaming from the conservative side of the political spectrum about not giving Bush the people he needs and wants to do the job would have been deafening. We would have been hearing about the importance of the FEMA director to protecting the country and how evil the liberals were being to block something so important.

The question is now ... will Brown take the 50k fall a few years from now when everything that was and wasn't done is stowed in the National Archives?

Kidding aside, I think Ed hits the nail on the head. Anyone who has lived in the shadow of I-495 will attest to the number of political appointees in high positions - placed there by both parties.

Until both sides stop this practice, the only thing we can hope for is that their britches are big enough to hide all the history.

Doug/Jim S--you are wrong. There's a big difference between pointing out discrepancies in someone's career record, and bickering about access to memos someone wrote 15-20 years ago. Virtually all the Democrats' resistance to Bush's appointees so far has amounted to "He/she is too conservative." But in Brown's case, they would have had real evidence casting doubt on his *qualifications*.

Besides which, conservative charges of obstructionism hasn't kept Democrats from sticking to their game plan with judicial nominees. Obviously, they just didn't care about the FEMA appointment.

This reply, on the other hand, would say that at some level it doesnt' matter who you put at the top, as long as there are competent people telling the political appointee what to do...and those people have been leaving fema "in droves".

To be fair, the fact that they are leaving in droves is not Bush's fault or anyone elses. It is a generational issue across the federal workforce. A lot of civil servants with vast amounts of experience (30+ years) are hitting retirement age and deciding to spend that pension. In some places you are looking at a third of the workforce retiring out. By Christmas, my upper management will have completely rolled over from a year ago. This isn't just FEMA, EPA, or other non-Republican agencies. DoD civilians are the same way.

The idea that Bush is somehow driving these people out is BS.