Brown is a fool and was nicely beaten down by another diarist, Goldy, who rooted out the truth about "qualified" Bush appointees and nominees.
Michael Chertoff isn't so easy to dismiss based on "pedigree." Chertoff, a magna cum laude Harvard grad and magna cum laude Harvard Law School grad, has passed the bar in three states and worked for some of the top law firms on the East Coast, as well as clerking for a SCOTUS judge, working as a prosecutor for the New York DA's office during Rudy's crime crackdown.
First, hate him for being one of the Whitewater brigade of neo-con lawyers. Hate him more for what follows:
State Representative Peter Sullivan said "Director Brown and Secretary Chertoff have given incompetence a bad name. Their planning was nonexistent. Their response to the crisis was lethargic. Their attempts to shirk responsibility is revolting. At a time when our country needs forthright leaders,. this administration gives us two men more concerned with partisan spin than with human suffering. Brown and Chertoff failed America, and they must be fired immediately"
So after days of listening to the Bush spin of "there's no benefit in laying blame now. Our job now should be to concentrate on handling the crisis on a day by day basis and when we are finished we can go back and look at 'who did what' and 'what went wrong' but for now lets just keep things in Bushland happy by disavowing responsibility (while we say no blame games--as we ourselves blame everyone else) for all of our failures at this time. The president himself is going to lead the investigation into his actions and his underlings actions and if that doesn't inspire confidence in you that we are doing all we can do then what else can be said?" <--- my hperbolic quote.
Well onto senor chertoff
After a career filled with opportunity inc: working as a US attorney, Chertoff started receiving his "obediance" benefits from one GW Bush.
Upped to Asst. AG under Ashcroft where he headed the criminal division of the Dept. of Justice. Meaning, he's the guy who could have gone after Enron, but didn't. He's the guy who could have gone after the Koch brothers, but didn't. He's the guy who could have gone after Tyco and Adelphia but didn't (forcing NY AG Eliot "da man" Spitzer to go after said federal criminals instead). Instead he went after Moussaoui and Enron enabler(scapegoat) Arthur Andersen.
Obediance bump 2: Named to 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Got confirmed 88-1, who dissented? HRC who was pissed that Chertoff was a dick during the Whitewater interrogations.
Obediance bump 3: barely warmed a seat in Philly when Mad Kerik ousted himself from D. Homeland Sec. Chertoff nominated by Bush and approved unanamiously.
So hate him for these things: 1. Only Bush appointed US attorney held over by the Clinton administration. He repaid their "reach across the aisle" by stabbing them in their collective backs concerning Whitewater. IOW---he's a strict partisan regardless of circumstance.
- As crime enforcer at DOJ, he along with Abu Gonzo and John "lost to a corpse" Ashcroft helped craft the doctrine of the "war on terror" and how the US could bend the rules of the Geneva conventions to fit their interrogation needs. IOW--torture's ok as long as we're the ones doing the torturing.
- Has never, nor would he have, worked in an emergency management field whereby he would have gained the necessary know-how for kicking ass in a state of crisis.
Chertoff is just another Bush appointee who lacks the fundamental skills for performing the tasks of the job to which he was appointed. Chertoff is just another partisan hack who's only goal in life is to improve his "station". Chertoff is just another lawyer who has spent an entire career doing everything possible to get noticed while doing as little real work as possible.
Now we have a media that is finally starting to force some answers out of Bushco and guess what? The lies we've known about are starting to be exposed. So as the press finally does their work, and Bushco weaves its web of lies and gets caught in said web, and as NOLA ferments and victims of Katrina turn homeless, jobless, and revolutionary; and as Cindy Sheehan and all of us keep up the Iraq is a lie tack; and as the CBO keeps investigating Halliburton contracts and payout scams; and as people like Tancredo and Hastert and Delay and Hannity and Barbour and Limbaugh keep sticking foot to mouth all I can say is: THE NEW GUARD IS WAITING, WE ARE WATCHING, AND WE WILL NOT SUFFER GOP STUPIDITY AND LIES IDLY, AND WE WILL NOT REST UNTIL WE WREST THE REINS OF GOVERNANCE FROM YOUR CROOKED HANDS.