Editorial: Rid top-level federal jobs of patronage

Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 | 5:52 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Sept. 10-11, 2005

A sign of strength and reassurance in times of natural disaster is the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency fully in control of effective rescue and rehabilitation efforts. The opposite has been true in the case of Hurricane Katrina. President Bush failed to follow a policy started by President Bill Clinton, which was to appoint experienced emergency managers to FEMA instead of continuing a presidential tradition of filling the agency's top jobs with political cronies. Bush first chose Joseph Allbaugh to head the agency. Allbaugh had served as Bush's chief of staff when Bush was governor of Texas, and in 2000 he had served as manager of Bush's presidential campaign. In 2003 Bush chose Michael D. Brown to head the agency. Brown was a longtime personal friend of Allbaugh's and a lawyer who had no experience in managing public emergencies before joi ning FEMA.

The consequences of such farcical appointments can be seen today throughout the coastal regions of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. The stupefying lack of federal response before and after the hurricane remains a topic of high national interest. Brown, naturally, has now been shunted aside as commander of hurricane relief efforts in favor of a much more qualified individual, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, whose 34-year resume includes having led Atlantic forces in the Coast Guard's response to 9/11.

The appointment of Brown represented a major departure from the Bush administration's main theme after 9/11, which was to make the country safer. After all of his words on that issue, Bush chose Brown for one of the most critical jobs in government. Brown, who worked through the 1990s as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, came to FEMA in 2001 as general counsel and was quickly promoted to deputy director. By 2003, courtesy of Bush, Allbaugh and uncritical congressional confirmation hearings, he was head of the whole agency. In recent days, FEMA has been more effective as the result of intense public pressure on the White House.

Brown's leadership, if it can be called that, served only as a demonstration to the country and to the world that the United States is not prepared in the event of a domestic catastrophe. Future presidents must learn from Bush's tragic mistake. Political patronage has no place in appointments to jobs that play key roles in national security.