Just mediocracy or sheer incompetence

I came across and article this morning by Paul Campos entitled, "The Mediocre Frat Boy Theory of Life" that explains how Mike Brown ended up being head of FEMA:

Political patronage is one of the world's oldest professions, but, like some other venerable practices, it needs to be kept within certain bounds of decency.

When politicians pay off friends, financial supporters, campaign workers, and other assorted hangers on by giving them government jobs, the distributors of such gifts need to keep in mind that certain positions should be reserved for people who actually know what they're doing. In particular, any job where poor performance is likely to end up killing people ought to be staffed by someone who is qualified to do it, or who is at least competent enough to recognize that he isn't qualified, so that he can surround himself with people who are.

As I outline in an article in this week's New Republic, former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown, who resigned on Monday, fit neither description. Nearly 15 years ago Brown abandoned a short and undistinguished legal career in his native Oklahoma and moved to Colorado, where for a decade he supervised judges at Arabian horse shows. In 2001 he resigned from that position under pressure, after members of the association that employed him accused him of mismanagement and possible impropriety.

At that point, Brown was a 47-year-old failed former lawyer who, in a world in which decisions were made wholly on merit, would have struggled to land another legal job. But needless to say that's not the world we inhabit.

Mike Brown had a powerful friend: his college buddy Joe Allbaugh, who was one of George W. Bush's key aides. When Bush became president he appointed Allbaugh to head FEMA, and within a couple of months Allbaugh had chosen Brown to be the agency's top lawyer. A few months later Brown was promoted to deputy director, and the year after that President Bush nominated him to head the entire agency.

Well, Mike Brown has resigned, blaming the media as he goes. And who do we have now? The same person who brought us duct tape and plastic sheeting as the solution to the preparedness problem. Oh, mercy!