<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2722" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=4><EM>NY Times</EM>:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=timestamp>September 9, 2005</DIV><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0"
type=" ">
<H1>Advance Men in Charge</H1></NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0"
type=" "></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody>
<P>The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced this week that it didn't
want the news media taking photographs of the dead in New Orleans. A FEMA
spokeswoman talked unconvincingly about the dignity of the dead. But the bizarre
demand, a creepy echo of the ban on news media coverage of the coffins returning
from Iraq, is simply the latest spasm of a gutted federal agency.</P>
<P><STRONG><FONT color=#0000ff size=4>It's not really all that surprising that
the officials who run FEMA are stressing that all-important emergency response
function: the public relations campaign. As it turns out, that's all they really
have experience at doing. </FONT></STRONG></P>
<P>Michael Brown was made the director after he was asked to resign from the
International Arabian Horse Association, and the other top officials at FEMA
don't exactly have impressive résumés in emergency management either. <A
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509070232sep07,1,1654452.story?ctrack=1&cset=true"
target=_0><FONT color=#000066>The Chicago Tribune reported on
Wednesday</FONT></A> that neither the acting deputy director, Patrick Rhode, nor
the acting deputy chief of staff, Brooks Altshuler, came to FEMA with any
previous experience in disaster management. Ditto for Scott Morris, the third in
command until May.</P>
<P>Mr. Altshuler and Mr. Rhode had worked in the White House's Office of
National Advance Operations. Those are the people who decide where the president
will stand on stage and which loyal supporters will be permitted into the
audience - and how many firefighters will be diverted from rescue duty to
surround the president as he patrols the New Orleans airport trying to look
busy. Mr. Morris was a press handler with the Bush presidential campaign.
Previously, he worked for the company that produced Bush campaign
commercials.</P>
<P>So when Mr. Brown finally got around to asking Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff for extra people for Katrina, it wasn't much of a departure for
Mr. Brown to say that one of the things he wanted them to do was to "convey a
positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community
organizations and the general public." We'd like them to stay focused on
conveying food, water and medical help to victims.</P>
<P>Political patronage has always been a hallmark of Washington life. But
President Bill Clinton appointed political pals at FEMA who actually knew
something about disaster management. The former FEMA director James Lee Witt,
whose tenure is widely considered a major success, was a friend of Mr. Clinton's
when he took office in 1993, but he had run the Arkansas Office of Emergency
Services. His top staff came from regional FEMA offices.</P>
<P>Surely there are loyal Republicans among the 50 directors of state emergency
services. But President Bush chose to make FEMA a dumping ground for unqualified
cronies - a sure sign that he wanted to hasten the degradation of an agency that
conservative Republicans have long considered an evil of big government. Katrina
has proved that federal disaster help is vital, and that Mr. Brown and his team
of advance men can't do the job. <STRONG><FONT color=#0000ff size=4>What America
needs are federal disaster relief people who actually know something about
disaster relief.</FONT></STRONG></P></DIV></NYT_TEXT></DIV></BODY></HTML>