TIME goes after FEMA Head

In keeping with trying to figure out which Republican is to blame for Katrina, TIME has launched an in-depth "investigation" into FEMA Chief Mike Brown's online resumes. While accusing Brown of both padding his resume and having no emergency management expience prior to becoming FEMA head, TIME simply doesn't acknowledge his work as having "served as FEMA's Deputy Director and the agency's General Counsel. Shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Mr. Brown served on the President's Consequence Management Principal's Committee, which acted as the White House's policy coordination group for the federal domestic response to the attacks." Nor does TIME mention his handling of some 150+ handling of other declared disasters and emergencies prior to Hurricane Katrina and the job he did. But on to what TIME does find important:

TIME's Smoking Gun #1: One profile listed Brown's position in the late 70's as having been an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" while a second profile left out the "assistant city manager" part. A TIME investigation revealed that, courtesy of a current Edmond, Oklahoma public relations manager, that he was actually an "assistant to the city manager."

TIME's Smoking Gun #2: Was Brown a "Professor" or an "Adjunct Instructor?" An online profile also listed Brown as having received an award for "Outstanding Political Science Professor." Certainly, such an award can come from any campus organization or club, or even non-campus entity. TIME focuses their attention on the word "professor" in an award in order to prove that Brown has beefed up his resume, because as most people know, citing an award for "Outstanding Political Science Professor" is the way to do that.

TIME's Smoking Gun #3: Mike Brown says he was a laywer who worked in such "areas of legal practice, from estate planning to family law to sports." But a guy who worked with him for 2 1/2 years in the early 1980's fully discredits that

"However, one former colleague does not remember Brown's work as sterling. Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer who was lead defense attorney on the Timothy McVeigh case, was Brown's boss for two-and-a-half years in the early '80s. "He did mainly transactional work, not litigation," says Jones."

TIME's Smoking Gun #4-5: Was Brown involved with the International Arabian Horse Association and was he a member of the board of Directors of a nursing home in Edmond? Really, this is compelling stuff, TIME.

At least TIME isn't grasping at nothing...