I just watched the most disgusting interview. Lester Holt interviewing Michael Brown.
Lester Brown Interview with Michael Brown
I tried to embed, but got a lot of errors. If someone can add the embed, I appreciated it.
Warning. Rant follows:
Transcript:
On today’s fifth anniversary of Katrina, Michael Brown returned to one the hardest hit neighborhoods. Lester Holt of MSNBC conducted an interview with the former FEMA director.
Holt: I think a lot of people would say, You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back to New Orleans, and especially here in the Ninth Ward. To which you say:
Brown: You know, this is a significant portion of these peoples’ lives what happened to them. It’s a significant portion of what happened to my life too. I will always be a part of what happened here, and I want to know what’s going on and I want to comment about what’s going on, and frankly, based on this, what’s not going on.
Holt: If you had to put your finger on one thing that you failed at, that somebody else failed at that landed a horror show that we saw in this neighborhood, what would it be?
Brown: It was the failure of, I think both the federal government of convincing Mayor Nagin to do an evacuation, and the failure of the mayor to do an evacuation early.
Holt: Were you urging him earlier, than that Sunday to declare a mandatory evacuation?
Brown: Oh, absolutely, we were, we were doing it 72 hours in advance. In fact, I actually picked up the phone, called the President down in Crawford, and said I’m asking you to do a favor for me and that is I want you, the President of the United States to call the mayor and use that bully pulpit and try and get him to evacuate.
Holt: Did the President make that call
Brown: He made the call.
Holt: Did the administration fail in its Katrina response?
Brown: Yes. I think there was this attitude of it’s a hurricane. Brown and his team have handled hurricanes before. They can handle this one. There was not the sense of urgency that this was the kind of catastrophic hurricane that we had been warning and trying to plan for.
Holt: Where did you fail, along the way?
Brown: The biggest mistake was not putting into context for the American public what was not working. I’ve gone back and looked at the talking points that we give to guys like you when we do the briefings. They were factually correct, things like we’re moving more ice water, meals, medical supplies than we’ve ever moved before... but what I didn’t tell the people was, it’s not enough and we’re having distribution problems with that stuff. We should have put it in better context. I failed to communicate how bad this was.
[Video: George W. Bush: “And Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”]
Holt: How did you become the villain? How did you become the symbol of the administration’s gross failure here?
Brown: Because I was the guy on the ground. You have to have somebody in charge in any disaster, and ostensibly that was me. So I’m the guy on the ground. I’m the face in front of the camera. And I’m the low man on the totem pole. So who do you think Bush is gonna fire?
Holt: No matter what you do in life. (Brown chuclkles) you will always be the guy who’s name will be associated with what went wrong here.
Brown: I often joke to my family I never wanted to be or expected to be an obituary in "the New York Times." Now they will carry it. And you know what the headline will be: the guy that Bush said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.”
[Laughs]
Holt: By the way nobody calls you Brownie.
Brown laughing, ‘No.”
Dear Brownie:
I'm going to call you Brownie, because Brownie was George W. Bush's nickname for you. And it is fitting that your name should forever be linked to the worst, most inept president in the history of the United States.
Brownie, really?? Your biggest mistake was getting your talking points wrong?? Not that you got the whole entire management of the most catastrophic natural emergency in recent U.S. history wrong?
"There was not the sense of urgency that this was the kind of catastrophic hurricane that we had been warning and trying to plan for." Seriously? You didn't think this behemouth that scientists were warning could breech the levies of New Orleans days in advance of landfall, this monster that had already hit Florida and was gathering strength to hit the Gulf coast was not the kind of hurricane you were planning for? The kind of hurricane that you just said you had called President Bush to order a mandatory evacuation for? That kind of hurricane?
And the only reason you were fired was because you were the face in front of the camera? The low man on the totem pole even though you were the Head of FEMA, and it was your job? If it wasn't your responsibility to manage an emergency?then whose job was it?
And you're still blaming Mayor Nagin and the millions of residents of New Orleans who didn't evacuate, despite the fact that they couldn't? That even though Mayor Nagin was able to commandeer buses, there was no one to drive the buses, and there was no place to house the evacuees? These people were too poor to afford cars to drive out---but it was their fault for not evacuating?
What portion of your life was affected, Brownie? A few hours while you were dining on seafood in Baton Rouge and had to interrupt you dinner when someone called to inform you that there were hundreds possibly thousands of people stranded in the Super Dome in heat and filth with no food or water?
You know what portion of the lives of the victims were affected? The whole entire portion. Because while you were trying to figure out which shirt to wear to deliver your regrettable talking points, someone's elderly mother died of exposure while she wasted away in a wheelchair waiting for water. Someone's mentally handicapped brother died because there was no one to attend to his needs. Someone's baby died of dehydration. Someone's dad died when he didn't get the medical attention he needed and had a seizure that could have been prevented had he had his medicine. Hundreds of people were left to suffer and die in the most deplorable conditions for five days because you and the Bush misadministration couldn't get its act together to rescue American citizens. While medical volunteers and trucks loaded with water and food were turned away, and as everyone in the world watched in horror, it's truly a shame a small portion of your life was affected, Brownie.
Brownie, I'm so sorry that someday when you die, most likely after a long life of comfort and satisfaction, that your obituary will appear in the New York Times and will associate you with this tiny little blot on your life's accomplishments. Too bad hundreds of New Orleaneans won't ever get an obituary, because they were never identified. Just another body floating in the water. Just another nameless human being lying face down in the debris and filth of the Super Dome.
Brownie, I'm glad you can laugh and joke with your family about it now. And that you seem to have no remorse or regret for the role you played in this disaster. A tiny dent in your gigantic ego is a small price to pay, and hopefully you can put it all past you even though the victims who managed to survive hell on earth will forever wear the scars of indignity and lasting unimaginable trauma.
Side note to Lester Holt: Shame on you for not calling Brownie out on his bullshit. Shame on you for giving this poor excuse for a human being this public interview. He doesn't deserve to show his self aggrandizing face anywhere near New Orleans. And shame on Congress and the Obama administration for not providing justice for the criminal neglect of the victims of this horrible nightmare.