Democrats share blame for hiring Brown FEMA director.

[Clarkie1]

Democrats controlled the senate when Brown was confirmed.

The hearing lasted 42 minutes.

Only 4 of 17 senators on the committee even bothered to show up.

Lieberman, chair of the committee (and one of the four who senators who at least bothered to show up) cited Brown's "extensive management experience."

The politicians have failed America. It's time for the non-politicians to take charge.

Clark 08'

[efhmc]

1. Not one to curse but this is crap!

[Sanity Claws]

2. This is exactly why Dems should filibuster everything

If they let Bush get his appointees, then the Dems are blamed when the appointee is a shithead. The real problem was Bush.
If we're going to get blamed for approving Bush's nominees, I say we filibuster every single last one of them.

[Clarkie1]

3. To clarify...

I certainly agree the buck stops with the President...he is the one who chose the nominee.

However, I am completely disgusted by the entire political process surrounding this appointment, and all who were involoved in it, Dems included.

:puke:

[autorank]

4. Clarkie1, thanks

Great post. I'm bookmarking it. This is THE reason behind a challenge to Lieberman. What good is he if he's not, at least, smart. Well, here you go, LIEberman thinks that fooling around with an elitist horse association and then getting dumped by the board after you've driven the association bankrupt is "extensive management experience" ... qualifications for the job.

What a loser LIEberman is. Spread the word.

and yes, Clark 08'

N.B. If Clark wants to get his highly qualified self in the WH, to all of our benefit, he needs to rock and roll. One way to do that would be to come out and just kick Lieberman's ass at a public speech. Make the same point you make. I hope he has the ability to realize audacity is called for in times like these.

[snowbear]

5. The SOB embellished his resume!

And besides.. Mister Buuuushh chose the arse-hole liar..

They should have done a better job of ensuring everything on his resume was the honest to God truth --- but Bush selected the LIAR.

[Clarkie1]

7. That's no excuse.

However, I would appreciate a complete and comfirmed rundown of the embellishments if you have them available.

[dsc]

6. Presidents matter

Brown's only confirmation was as number 2 at FEMA, the law which set up Homeland Security ended up exempting him from reconfirmation. Frankly there must be well into the thousands of appointees on Brown's level and the scrutiny that is shown them is going to be negligable. If it weren't it would take forever to appoint anyone to anything.

[Clarkie1]

9. Yes, presidents matter, however...

There are not thousands of Bush appointees on the level of the Director of FEMA, or even as number #2 at agencies that large.

There are not 500 federal agencies as large and certainly not as important as FEMA.

I expected all the senators to show up when there is a confirmation hearing for a #2, especially the Democrats.

[dsc]

10. He was never confirmed as director

and I am not even sure his previous position was actually number 2 but the confirmation was for that position. In all honesty it is pretty shocking that virtually no one showed up but that happens quite often.

[Clarkie1]

11. You are correct.

The senate never confirmed him as director.

They enabled the political cronyism.

[cally]

12. Correct, he was confimed for a lower level position

and became Director in a the omnibus Homeland Security Bill. Dems should review each appointee but lower level appointees don't get much scrutiny.

[genius]

8. Harry Reid allowed the voice vote. He does that all the time

with bad nominees.

[tech3149]

13. politics is one thing

not well served when left to professionals. But really poitics is just the PR/marketing that gets in the way of representative governance. Until people realize that they're being sold a product not being informed of policy goals, I don't see much hope.

[paulk]

14. not really

He was confirmed as a deputy, a position that almost never gets the kind of scrutiny that directer would. Only four or five Senators even bothered to show up for the hearing.

Ben Nightsoil Campbell, CO Senator, vouched for him, since Brown was from there - that was good enough for the rest of the committee.


-------------


Really - these people - Senators - are extremely busy. They don't have time to waste on deputy appts.

The real blame goes to whoever wrote the rules that a deputy could move up to director without a hearing.

Those people were the Bush administration.

[Clarkie1]

16. My understanding is that federal agencies are created by acts of congress

as are the rules governing what positions require a "hearing."

The excecutive branch is certainly not going to go out of its way to require congressional hearings, it's the job of the legislative branch to demand them.

[paulk]

19. my understanding is that BushCo changed the rules for

Homeland Security. So that there didn't have to be a hearing...
Bush was originally opposed to the Homeland Security Dept. It was essentially a Democratic idea. But once it became obvious that it would pass - he embraced it 100% - then he and his neocon buddies rewrote the damn thing. The Democrats were caught - they'd been pushing it bigtime - the public was behind it.


The result of Bush's homeland security bait and switch is New Orleans.



There's a great temptation to blame Lieberman for everything here at DU, and much of it is justified. I don't think this is.

Blame the Republicans.

That should be our mantra.

[DELUSIONAL]

15. I hold Lieberman accountable --

he's really a Republican anyway.

[LittleClarkie]

17. When he entered politics, he became a politician

so, if he ever gets elected to office, does that mean you won't trust him anymore?

[Clarkie1]

18. There are Politicians and then there are "politicians"

This does not mean there are not Politicians (like Kerry) who are good people.

But there is a difference.