Bye-bye Brownie!

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Exactly. If most of the top people at FEMA are unqualified patronage appointments, who's in charge now that Brown's officially out?

Well, his replacement will be a FEMA official with 30 years.

R. David Paulison, head of FEMA's emergency preparedness force, will lead the beleaguered agency, according to three administration sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.

Paulison is a career firefighter from Miami who was among emergency workers responding to Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades in 1996, according to a biography posted on FEMA's Web site. He also has led the U.S. Fire Administration since December 2001, according to the site.

As chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, Paulison led 1,900 personnel under a $200 million operating budget. He was also in charge of Dade County's emergency management office, according to his biography.

How do you like that? Smack someone across the head with a two by four, and they actually do better on the second try.

Of course, in some areas you only get one chance. I have this picture of Bush looking over the devastated landscape of the United States and saying "Boy, I'm not going to do that again!"