Frontline has the best analysis of what went wrong with the Katrina response to date. The program will be available online tomorrow at 5pm ET.
Brown laid blame often incorrectly on the local officials, state officials, Congress, Adjutant General Landreneau [head of the Louisiana National Guard], the press and private companies. But as for himself....
Ok that's bad enough but here is the point of the interview at which I wanted to throttle Brown. He was discussing how he "mispoke" when he said THREE times to the press that he had just learned of the people stranded at the Convention Center......Frontline: Did you fail?
Brown: I did not fail. We made mistakes. I'll make a great confession here. FEMA makes mistakes in every disaster. They always occur. Everybody makes mistakes. That's just the nature of the business. That's the nature of disasters.
That's the world that we live in, and I'm not going to lose sleep over it, because I know what the truth is, and I didn't lie or embellish. And life goes on.
Frontline: So you said it three times.
Brown: I said it three times.
Frontline: How do you misspeak three times? I don't understand.
Brown: I'm not going to make excuses for it. The facts are that we learned on Wednesday around 12:00, 12:20 in an e-mail that I received from one of my people on the ground that the spontaneous evacuation had occurred. People were now flooding into the Convention Center.
And I'm not trying to make excuses here. But you get into this cycle -- you're being asked questions. And what people don't see behind the scenes is that I'm still running a disaster. And after an [interview] take finishes, I don't sit and say: "How did I do? Did I answer it right?" I'm either signing a document, giving someone an assignment, making something happen, working on about 12 hours of sleep. And I simply misspoke three times.
And when I go back and look at those, I understand why people can now look at that tape and say: "Brown's saying he just learned about that? He really must be an idiot." I simply misspoke. I knew about it 24 hours before, and I should have said, "We just learned about it 24 hours ago, Brian."
He says no excuses but then goes on to offer nothing but excuses.
But here it is. Drownie got PISSY with Frontline on the follow-up question. One must see it to get the full effect but with a smile on his face and his voice dripping with sarcasm he said.....
Frontline: I just don't understand how you would misspeak three times about that situation.
Brown: Well, I'll tell what we'll do. Next time there's a really big disaster, we'll put you in charge of it. We'll not give you any sleep, and we'll put you on this side of the camera. And we'll pepper you with questions for a couple hours at a time and see how tired you are.
Well Sooooorry Mr. Brown. Who knew you were the victim here. Go tell it the dead Drownie.
I know there is blame for many here but it is only Brown that time and again will not accept ANY responsibility and in fact wants us to feel sorry for him. I don't see other officials playing victim in this way. I'm sick of it. Brown offers nothing anymore to what little public discourse there is on Katrina. So just go away Drownie. Go far far far away. Silently.
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