If Bush isn't competent himself, why should he hold others to a higher standard?

I believe this rejection means he will get to hold them to the SAME standard, and we can have another Michael Brown.

It’s good to see more attention being paid to Dubya’s signing statements. (There are 800-plus of them.) The real issue here is not what FEMA does after the next hurricane, it’s Bush using signing statements to turn the U.S. presidency into dictatorship.

I’d like to see this particular signing statement in full, however. Bush, Chaney et al. have used the pretext of “protecting national security” to circumvent other laws and to keep the operations of the executive branch secret from the public.

Thanks to Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe for bringing the issue of Bush's signing statements to light and staying after it.

For once, Bush has a point. It doesn't take all that much experience to handle an emergency.

I'd have said Brown had enough experience if he had, say, COMPETENTLY run the Arabian Horse Association - instead of running it into the ground and getting out with a suspiciously large amount of money. Even presiding over a well-run horse show would indicate a degree of organization and horse sense that was weirdly absent during and after Hurricane Katrina.

In fact, all through the ordeal I kept thinking that a team of older women who had expperience in running church bazaars or club potlucks, provided with a bank of phones and the right telephone books, could have aced it.

But you have to be thinking of something other than whether you should wear a white or a blue shirt, Where to lunch in a disaster zone, and how far the sleeves should be rolled up for the New Orleans photo op - and the emails circulating reveal that that is what was foremost on Brownie's mind.

Compassion, the will to get things done, and teamwork - add that to the resources of one of the richest nations on earth and it should have been easy.