Yes, Brownie, we DID NEED you to be a superhero

Although he bust out of the chute buckin' and blamin', former FEMA idiot-in-charge (and now, unbelievably, paid FEMA consultant) Michael Brown got quite a spanking at yesterday's House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina, much to my and many others' surprise. I still think he needs a few sessions behind the woodshed with some angry, storm-toughened survivors bearing the crowbars they had to use to claw their way out of attics only to stew on their rooftops for days on end -- but yesterday's five-hour interrogation was a good start. Some highlights (from the Washington Post):

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday [two days before the storm hit] that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown asserted. Duh, Mike -- the place is crawling with Democrats, couldn't you have figured that one out? Seriously, though, Brown labeling anyone else "dysfunctional" is just further proof that the inmates have taken over the asylum that we call "government."

When Brown argued that the White House "was fully engaged . . . behind the scenes," Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) interjected: "They had to be behind the scenes, because I think we didn't see anything out front."

When Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, pressed him about his performance, a petulant Brown complained: "So I guess you want me to be this superhero." Well, yes. That would have been a good start, especially for the people dying for lack of water and other basic essentials. Speaking of which...

When Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) complained about the lack of ice in New Orleans, Brown replied: "I think it's wrong for the federal government to be in the ice business, providing ice so I can keep my beer and Diet Coke cool." Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), incredulous, asked, "How about the need to keep bodies from rotting in the sun?" And, Brownie, you weren't there, remember? You were sipping your beer and Diet Coke up there in DC, playing Nintendo War of the Worlds or whatever you must have been doing to have been so completely clueless and ineffectual.

God, the man's blockheaded inability to SEE that something REALLY BAD happened there is absolutely dumbfounding, not to mention offensive. And we're still paying him his fat FEMA salary, and he's still being clueless and defensive, and the big wheel keeps spinning round...