Michael Brown in the Senate
February 10, 2006 2:32 PM   Subscribe

 
I've been watching it on C-SPAN for the last hour. Brownie sure is a lot more fired up than I would expect. I was very interested in the back and forth about executive privilage and how it probably would have been granted if it had been requested.
posted by nadawi at 2:36 PM on February 10, 2006


Um, a link to C-SPAN's front page?
posted by the_bone at 2:41 PM on February 10, 2006


via crooksandliars

brownie video 1
brownie video 2
(quicktime)
posted by setanor at 2:54 PM on February 10, 2006


If you have something that understands rtsp, then Michael Brown's testimony.
posted by Laen at 2:55 PM on February 10, 2006


wow. i didn't think i liked brown much, but i do believe im developing a spot of sympathy for the man.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 3:08 PM on February 10, 2006


When's the last time you've heard an American politician or appointee say "I screwed up, I apologize, and I am now resigning my position for the betterment of the [Agency X] so we can put this behind us and move on."

Duke Cunningham did, only after he was caught. It would be nice to see some accountability from anyone in politics these days.
posted by bardic at 3:38 PM on February 10, 2006


It would be nice to see some accountability from anyone in politics these days.

No. It would be nice to see one of them commit Sepuku.
posted by tkchrist at 4:03 PM on February 10, 2006


Between this and Scooter Libby saying his superiors told him to, things are not looking up for our favorite administration.

That said, Brown is still a sack of shit. Nice to see that he learned blame shifting from the true masters, though.
posted by Ryvar at 4:04 PM on February 10, 2006


Duke Cunningham did it because it was part of his plea bargain; apologize in public, or we'll tack on another 6 months.

He deserves to rot.
posted by Relay at 4:11 PM on February 10, 2006


He should have invoked his Fashion God powers.
posted by clevershark at 4:24 PM on February 10, 2006


Glad to see him pointing j'accuse'ing fingers but it's gonna be tough for anyone to believe his complaints that the DHS didn't heed his warnings when there's been evidence for months that he was busy ignoring warnings from his own staff.
posted by NailsTheCat at 4:39 PM on February 10, 2006


It would be nice to see some accountability from anyone in politics these days.


I wonder that this administration will ever be effectively taken to task for all damage that it has done, by omission and commission, here and elsewhere in the world.

We're into our sixth year of this crap and there appears to be no end to it. Furthermore, none of the parties that one would expect to be calling them to account appear to have either the will or the inclination to do so.

The print media seems to have been cowed into deference and specious "balance"; the electronic media seems to have given up the notion that they have a resposibility to do anything other than entertain; the President's own party in Congress seems to have abrogated their Constitutional duties in the interest of party discipline; the Democrats in Congress are too timid to be an effective opposition.

There has been a long list of moments like this over the past couple years and I can't say I've seen any lasting damage done to the Bush administration by any of them. The sheer energy and enthusiasm they have for mischief and worse seems to have either cowed or exhausted our range of watchdogs. I mean who gets away with starting a war???

The other day I read someone opine that the Bushies' strategy is to just mess up as many things as possible under presumption that no one could possibly keep track of them all. I'm inclined to agree.
posted by hwestiii at 4:54 PM on February 10, 2006


Had there been a report that "a terrorist had blown up the 17th Street Canal levee, then everybody would have jumped all over that," Brown added.

Touché!
posted by furtive at 5:29 PM on February 10, 2006


hwestiii, if that's true, then we're all dead. I still think Katrina got thru to people, if nothing else. We'll see in Nov, i guess.
posted by amberglow at 5:47 PM on February 10, 2006


That said, Brown is still a sack of shit. Nice to see that he learned blame shifting from the true masters, though.

Brown is definitely getting no slack from me. It's really nice to see how firing people out of a cannon results in some blowback, though.

We're into our sixth year of this crap and there appears to be no end to it.

Actually, I think the pile of people who have been stepped on, pushed aside, and outright eviscerated for doing what they were told is growing rather large, and the line of people ready to go through the grinder rather short. A lot of this is coming out now precisely because the Prez is at 40% (45% if you're on FOX, which in its own way is even more damning).

November is the key. If we don't see a big pendulum swing (and I'm not even counting on either house of Congress switching hands), then the country is really in sad shape, and I don't know if we'll ever recover.
posted by dhartung at 6:12 PM on February 10, 2006


I read someone opine that the Bushies' strategy is to just mess up as many things as possible under presumption that no one could possibly keep track of them all.

This is not an original observation, but there's also the famous analysis of the Big Lie technique from an OSS report on its supreme master: "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it." (From Nizkor archives, via Wikipedia, s.v. Big Lie)
posted by Creosote at 6:20 PM on February 10, 2006


GW has f'd up every position given to him. Why should presidenting be any different?

In my more paranoid moments, I imagine that George is doing God's work, at least in his own eyes. The more f'd up the country is, the more people will turn to God. Besides, why does anything that happens matter anyway? We are in the Final Days, after all.
posted by tgyg at 10:28 PM on February 10, 2006


I have a hard time hoping for a real change come November. The old adage that everyone hates Congress, but everyone loves their congressman (person) really holds true.

Every local election has to have some Democrat (or, alternately, some Republican with the balls to put logic, honesty and civic duty over party loyalty) who will be effective in linking said local race to what's going on with Bush & Co. That could be a very tough act when most folks will still be looking after their own local interests in these elections.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:32 AM on February 11, 2006


If we don't see a big pendulum swing (and I'm not even counting on either house of Congress switching hands), then the country is really in sad shape, and I don't know if we'll ever recover.
posted by dhartung


There is no pendulum. The Bushie GOP is playing for keeps, not for allowing the opposition an opportunity to gain power one day. The evidence for this abounds. "Presidentin' would be a lot easier if this were a dictatorship" -GWB
posted by nofundy at 6:12 AM on February 11, 2006


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