Surely the most unfortunate thing President Bush has said since the disaster of Hurricane Katrina is the now-famous compliment directed to then—Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

National Review, Oct 10, 2005

Surely the most unfortunate thing President Bush has said since the disaster of Hurricane Katrina is the now-famous compliment directed to then--Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." The president made the remark during a visit to Alabama on September 2, and even then, it was clear that Brown was not doing a heck of a job.

Later, of course, that became overwhelmingly obvious, yet the White House, inexplicably, did not move quickly to sack Brown. First, it bobbled the matter, in effect demoting Brown by taking him off the Gulf assignment. Only later did it accept his resignation. By then, however, a lot of damage had been done. Most important, failing to act quickly to relieve Brown contributed to the confusion at FEMA during a critical time. But it also allowed Bush's critics to attack his disinclination to hold people accountable for their mistakes. The joke going around just after the hurricane was that no one knew whether the president would fire Brown or award him the Medal of Freedom. That would not have been funny had there not been a grain of truth to it.