Brown Nose

I swore off Michael Brown after it became public knowledge that he was a popinjay, but --

From the AP...23 pages of internal e-mail offering additional evidence of a confused and distracted government response, particularly from a Michael Brown, the former head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, at critical moments after the storm hit.

Brownie has outdone doing himself in. Not only was he by all accounts incompetent; he was also was a tad vain:

The e-mails show that Brown, who had been planning to step down from his post when the storm [Katrina] hit, was preoccupied with his image on television even as one of the first FEMA officials to arrive in New Orleans, Marty Bahamonde, was reporting a crisis situation of increasing chaos to FEMA officials.

Marty Bahamonde was the only FEMA official actually in New Orleans when the storm hit, and he might have been there by accident. But as the storm approached, he did his damnedest to get the attention of the Brown in Washington. The mind of Brownie had other things stuck to it, however:

"My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous - and I'm not talking the makeup," writes Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs to Brown on 7:10 a.m. local time on Aug. 29.

"I got it at Nordstroms," Brown writes back. "Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?" An hour later, Brown adds: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

The most important thing about Brown, the reason he has become a vomit god in the eyes of the public, is that deep down, we all know that he is George W. Bush's Nose. It came off one day in church. Years later, it returned as the head of FEMA.

And it did a heck of a job.