“Heckuva Job Brownie” criticizes Obama for responding to Hurricane Sandy “so quickly.”

Former FEMA Director Michael “Can I come home?” Brown is upset with President Obama for responding to Hurricane Sandy “so quickly.”

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Heckuva Job Brownie Criticizing Obama for Preparing Too Quickly (Via Cynical-C)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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spider2Ybanana

Is this the Onion? This can’t be real. Am I awake? Is this real life?
- Bearpaw01
  
  Amazingly, it’s real. I can’t guess whether whoever thought asking Brownie about this was clueless or genius. Did they really think his opinion on this was worth anything, or were they setting him up?
  - grimc
    
    Know what’s even crazier? Brownie is co-host on a afternoon drive-time radio talk show in Denver. It’s not just an alt weekly newspaper that thinks his genius is worth inflicting on the public, but somebody saw fit to put this clown on the airwaves in a regular time slot.
    - Cowicide
      
      The more accomplished you are at blatantly bending reality, the more corporatists want you on the radio airwaves helping to befuddle the bewildered herd.
      - http://www.doggo.net doggo
        
        That’s my next band name, with your permission, Cowicide. Befuddled, Bewildered Herd.
      - Robert
        
        Bewildebeest.
- Mitchell Glaser
  
  Really? You’re that surprised? I mean this is the era of congressmen who spew hate about gays and then take off on vacations with rentboys. There is no shame among the sociopaths who seem to make up a frightening percentage of politicians.
  - abstract_reg
    
    You know, I would like to see some statistics on that. What percentage of the general population are sociopaths? I’m sure someone has done a study right?
    - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
      
      ad nauseum, estimates range from 1% as high as 7-10% and people will argue about it until the cows come home and chop everyone up.
      
      But I can save you & all BB a long thread arguing about it, the sociopaths win the argument every time, we just can’t tell to what degree.
      - teapot
        
        I’ve heard 3%… but by old-timey standards we are all perverts destined straight for hell.
        
        I seriously question any test’s ability to determine whether a person is a sociopath or not.
      - http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
        
        Cue Jon Ronson’s “The Psychopath Test” here.
    - hymenopterid
      
      I think it’s a matter of where one draws the line at sociopath. Psychopaths and sociopaths are supposedly both flavors of antisocial personality disorder. Personally I think we should take into account how much damage the person is willing or capable of doing. Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay are examples of sociopaths with the willingness and capacity to do a lot of damage, but how many sociopathic type personalities manage to live their lives without hurting a bunch of strangers? If one is of a sociopathic personality, but manages to keep one’s behavior in check, then would one be considered a sociopath? I suspect a lot of people would say no, because the definition of antisocial personality disorder is based on a patern of behavior, but I have to wonder why then is it called antisocial personality disorder and not antisocial behavior such and such. This is why I am saying it depends on how you define a sociopath. Do you base it on the person’s history, or is it based on a physiological difference in their brains?
      
      When I say you I mean not you personally but whoever is doing the defining of sociopath.
      - GawainLavers
        
        “one”
      - hymenopterid
        
        “yous”
    - Mark_Frauenfelder
      
      Conservatives are not all sociopaths. But sociopaths are almost always conservatives.
      - rocketpjs
        
        In the current political context in North America. There are other places and contexts where the opposite has likely been true. I suspect sociopaths are most attracted to the political positions of the powerful – be they Wall Street or the Kremlin or the Khmer Rouge.
      - teapot
        
        Believe it or not, “conservative” and “liberal” are words that apply to people everywhere. I cannot speak for the world but Mark’s commentary is very aplicable her in Australia.
      - abstract_reg
        
        @boingboing-b5af41b269f7d4efc530e7a95cba9750:disqus “Liberal” actually isn’t used in American politics.
      - teapot
        
        T-SHIRT…. THIS IS THE COPY FOR THE NEXT BB T-SHIRT!
- Cornan
  
  I just wanted to say that I love your handle.
  
  Just remember to never throw the venus.
Michael Rosefield

Anything the president does before the election in a competent manner is clearly just a cynical political manoeuvre.
- Sagodjur
  
  Anything [a member of the opposing political party] does before the election in a competent manner is clearly just a cynical political maneuver [or was actually made possible by or copied from the actions of a member of your own party].
  
  I wouldn’t be surprised to hear someone suggest that Obama only knows how to respond to disasters competently because Bush “refined” that practice during his administration.
L_Mariachi

The incredible thing is that this spineless lickspittle is still kissing the asses of everyone who hung him out to dry (no pun intended) after Katrina. This after his Playboy interview where he tried to deflect blame onto, variously, Chertoff, the White House, and the media.
- iamlegion
  
  Of course he is. He’s far too famously incompetent to get any job anywhere else than with those same asshats. His dignity is literally the only thing he has left to sell.
  - voiceinthedistance
    
    A little bird told me that Brownie is first in line for the newly appointed position of Secretary of Equine Affairs (naturally, there will be some empty chairs to fill, once President Romney does a little bureaucratic pruning).
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      A little bird told me that Brownie is first in line for the newly appointed position of Secretary of Equine Affairs
      
      Equine Affairs? Like the kind that they have in Enumclaw?
      - http://horseisahorse.myopenid.com/ HorseIsAHorse
        
        I think it just means that Brownie’s gonna have a heckuva job cleaning out Rafalca’s stable.
      - bzishi
        
        In case people don’t know what @Antinous_Moderator:disqus is referring to:
        http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-animal-in-you/Content?oid=30811
    - GawainLavers
      
      Given the importance of Dressage to the Romney administration, I can guarantee you Ann wouldn’t let Brownie within hundred miles of a horse. But they’re probably okay with putting him in charge of something relating to “you people”.
nixiebunny

Hmmm. Maybe because those 30 million blue-state voters would appreciate some support in their time of need.
Antinous / Moderator

Well, obviously President Obama responded quickly because he created the hurricane with his reptilian weather control gland.
- ryuthrowsstuff
  
  Clearly his plan has been to use HAARP for class warfare against the denizens of New Jersey since the start.
- margaretpoa
  
  Sure! All Kenyan, Socialists have those. Where were you during biology class?
  - hymenopterid
    
    At least we can count on the Peruvians to save us, even if they do take their sweet time.
  - EH
    
    How about how they turned most of Africa into a desert?
- oasisob1
  
  I’ve been saying this all along, and nobody believes me!
margaretpoa

Because Drownie really knows how to handle weather disasters….
That_Anonymous_Coward

Tell us oh wise and all knowing emergency expert with a higher bodycount, what we should believe.
Mitchell Glaser

I am beginning to suspect that Sandy is the Deus Ex Machina that is going to drown Mitt and his ilk in a cesspool of cess. Too bad the lesson learned will be forgotten in a year.
- hymenopterid
  
  Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
  - acerplatanoides
    
    Far Rockaway, that’s where we needed Brownie
- EH
  
  Cess is too good for them.
- http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
  
  I’m sure the Religious Right will be quick to ascribe this to God’s will that Oba—
  
  Okay, I can’t even type that with a straight face.
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    Yesterday some “preacher” blamed the storm on teh evul gayz.
acerplatanoides

Cherry Tart
margaretpoa

Drownie is a perfect example of the kind of importance conservatives lend to relief organizations. Bush II appointed a horse trainer as FEMA head because the guy wrote him a fat check and got some other horse trainers to write him fat checks. Rather than putting in somebody actually qualified, he handed the post to a sycophantic ideologue office seeker. The rest is history. I can think of no better illustration than that to support my theory that being conservative first requires one to be a little bit of a sociopath.
- Boundegar
  
  Republican doctrine is that the Federal government can’t do anything right, or well, or on time, or on budget. To demonstrate their contempt, they treat appointments like this as sinecures. Then, when things go wrong, it’s just proof of Axiom 1. Rinse, repeat.
  
  For that reason, seeing the government doing something really well, really competently, infuriates them. It is a sure sign that too much money was spent.
  - Gatto
    
    Yup. This. Though it’s not just contempt. It’s a deliberate attempt to undermine public programs. Nothing lets you cut the FEMA budget like showing how useless it is.
    
    Wing nut conservatives are way smarter than people give them credit for.
  - DreamboatSkanky
    
    Except the Military, don’t forget. For some reason, the incompetent boobs that screw up everything else somehow manage to give us The Best Military In The World.
    - http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
      
      And that every human being employed by the government is another step toward tyranny, unless that person is heavily armed.
smallteam

“Mr. Civil Defense Tells About Natural Disasters!” (comic)
http://archive.org/details/Mr.CivilDefenseTellsAboutNaturalDisasters
http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

One thing I learned from listening to Rush Limbaugh: they can ALWAYS find a way to fault Democrats, even if it means turning logic on its head. And of course insinuations preceded by “Now, I have no proof of this, but it sure looks suspicious…”
- chgoliz
  
  Wait….you learned something from listening to Rush Limbaugh?
  
  *rubs eyes*
  
  Didn’t know that was possible.
  - http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson
    
    Sure, I learned to recognize Republican strategy: how can we turn Obama’s quick response and general competence into something we can then beat him over the head with?
    
    For example, bin Laden gets killed on Obama’s watch, and conservative strategists criticize him for “spiking the football” by announcing it.
  - teapot
    
    Glenn Beck taught me that acrostic creative writing does have a use outside primary school.
http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

Brownie, you’re spewing a heck of a lob.
Mencius

The shittiest part is that, win or lose this election, Republican leadership like this has the support of approximately 50 percent of the country.
- EH
  
  That’s just team-ism. I think people agree more than they don’t.
- http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul
  
  It’s not quite that bad… more like 43% of voters, and the lights are going out more and more rapidly in those retirement homes.
  
  Think young people, particularly those with any minority cultural self-identification, are ever going to associate themselves with the teabaggers and birchers that are the remains of the republican party? I don’t.
  
  To me, their “brand” is so fucked by this last election cycle that it looks like they celebrated jumping the shark by teabagging the alligator.
  
  The republican party is rapidly becoming a single cable channel that exclusively advertises boner pills, prostate relief, gold investment schemes, and reverse mortgages for the elderly.
  - intheshadowofleaves
    
    You’d be surprised how many young people identify themselves as Republicans.
    
    Heck, one guy I know is gay, black AND calls himself a “true Republican”. I haven’t had the heart yet to tell him that the party he supports hates everything about him and assumes he’s on welfare just because of the color of his skin.
    - http://jere7my.livejournal.com jere7my
      
      …You know Curtis?
- Petzl
  
  It’s truly absurd how many people are senseless. Here, on boingboing, sensible people talk rationally and objectively. Elsewhere, it really is a vast wilderness. It’s just astounding how many people in the first-world USA do not have critical reasoning skills. Why is it that countries like Australia, Finland, Norway, Germany are so much more rational than us?
http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

Here seems to be the original article in question: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/10/michael_brown_fema_obama_hurricane_sandy.php

Apparently, Obama’s mistake was telling people to prepare the night before and not leaving it until a few hours before the storm so everyone could run out in a panic and take care things! That would have had a bigger impact somehow.

For a FEMA director, Brown says, timing is always an important question: When is it most effective for the president to make an announcement?

“He probably could’ve had a little more impact doing it today,” says Brown. (The president did hold another press conference today as well…)”
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  LoL, is timing important Brown? To a FEMA director or just anybody doing anything? whataturd
- EH
  
  Impact. The image of the message. No wonder he was a part of the Bush Administration.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

“Oh sure, he does something right and everybody is all “hey great job!”, but when I fuck up altogether everybody is all “hey fire that guy he sucks”! Talk about a double standard!”
pjcamp

The only thing wrong with that is he didn’t say “Benghazi” enough times.

Benghazi Benghazi.

Benghazi.
- Saltine
  
  You’re the first poster to address the actual purpose of “Brownie’s” message: to link the word “benghazi” to something that could be perceived as an Obama success. Obama caught bin Laden, so they have to find a way to make him look weak, cowardly, ineffectual, and dishonest. So they’re trying to say that he doesn’t care about American lives. Never mind that the GOP voted to spend less on embassy security. Never mind that Brown presided over a huge cluster-f*ck in NOLA. Just keep saying “benghazi.” It’s the new “birth certificate,” the new-new “swift boat.”
  
  Sadly this tactic works on some.
- Petzl
  
  Apparently, the entire time the US was being buffeted by Hurricane Sandy, FOX News was continually broadcasting a late-breaking news exclusive: Libya-gate.
  
  If you said “huh?” you’re like me, and not in the Republican bubble.
Bruno Leonardo Neves Machado

This is the inverse of an inteligent statement.
Anahata

At long last it finally happened. The Douche-ometer broke. I was wondering what might ever do it. Heckuva job, Brownie.
CastanhasDoPara

Um… Dude..(Brown) EFF. YOU. *under breath* -dumb motherfucker.

Or… Just eff off and die. It’s jerks like you that make me wish inter-planetary travel were possible. And that the planets available for habitation also instituted a decent immigration policy with at least a minimum competency level. Wouldn’t it be nice to live on a planet where all of your fellow citizens actually “GOT IT” and weren’t stupendously idiotic and shrilled up to some corporate/repuglican/fucktarded-ass mental-gymnastic BS?

Sorry for the language. But this turd, this hemorrhoid on the anus of whatever should have died not almost 4 years ago, needs to know that his brand of ass-hatery is exactly what is tearing the US apart. Again, Brownie, who the hell are you to say what’s up? You were a complete fuck up then and a complete fuck up now. What standing to you have to tell Obama anything, let alone how to deal with a massive hurricane?
- chgoliz
  
  Righteous anger, with the language to match, *is* the correct response.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  Alternately, we can load up Brown and his ilk into one space ship with the controls set for the heart of the sun.
  - CastanhasDoPara
    
    Ah Of course! In my rage I forgot we have a very good incinerator. Though really we could just strap them to the top of the rocket. That would get them. Or even more practical we could string them up and roast them under the rocket engine, could have a viewing area and everything. I’m kidding of course.
    
    But really, seriously, maybe flamethrowers would be practical. I’m kidding…
    
    Still wish I could get off this idiot covered rock though.
http://undulantfever.blogspot.com/ Bruce Arthurs

I am speechless. Too bad Brownie wasn’t.
http://www.hisnameistimmy.com Tim in SF

I’ll listen to Brownie on this topic as enthusiastically as I’ll listen to Catholic priests lecture gay parents on child care.
teapot

You can tell from his “trying to look thoughtful” expression that this guy is a GOP supporter. I seriously want someone to set up a “dem or repub” quiz which presents pictures of (non-swinging) voters and you have to guess which way they vote. I reckon I’d score in 90th percentile.
PlutoniumX

“Heckuva Job Brownie”

When I read that, I thought a conservative finally wasn’t denying their main issue with the President and was wearing their racism on their sleeve.
SamSam

Oh wow, he’s just made it even worse:

Bush-era FEMA Chairman Michael Brown is standing by his suggestion that President Barack Obama acted too soon to call attention to federal disaster response efforts to Hurricane Sandy.

“In the context of the election, I simply said he should have waited.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83076.html#ixzz2AsdJdUmd

Oh, right, that makes sense. Obama should have had the good sense to realize that doing something would have just looked political, and so ought to have acted slower… in order to be non-political… what?

I think that Brownie may be trolling us.
http://www.shanebrucejohnston.com Shane Johnston

As a New Orleanian with first hand Katrina experience: Screw this guy. A week went by and while New Orleans died, he sat on his hands. I’m speechless.
Baldhead

Aside from the obvious WTF of the “responding too soon” statement, comparing it to Benghazi is just idiotic. Apples and oranges. One was a major storm that had yet to hit land- but we knew it would- one was an assassination that used a riot as cover. We all found out about it after it was over. Should the president always rush back to Washington for every crisis even when it’s done and there’s nothing he could do about it?
BarBarSeven

Sorry folks, but I am loving this! It really takes a genuine disaster to show you a person’s true colors. Michael Brown = shit.
Halloween_Jack

This guy was responsible for way more deaths in NOLA than died in Benghazi.
http://twitter.com/MrsSheaWong shea wong

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO of meeting between GOP and Michael Brown re: HurricaneSandy! http://wp.me/p2vDHA-9e