Top Items:
Time:
How Reliable Is Brown's Resume? — A TIME investigation reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief's official biographies … When President Bush nominated Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003, Brown's boss at the time, Joe Allbaugh, declared …
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The Left Coaster, The Stakeholder, Daimnation!, David Corn, Obsidian Wings, Agitprop, The Carpetbagger Report, Think Progress, Julie Saltman, Oliver Willis, Democratic Veteran, Eric Umansky, Hit and Run, Talking Points Memo, Taegan Goddard's …, »«TBogg»«, Crooks and Liars, First Draft, AMERICAblog, News Hounds and Pam's House Blend
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Spencer S. Hsu / Washington Post:
Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience — Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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The Washington Monthly, PostWatch, Demagogue, WTF Is It Now??, Talking Points Memo and ArchPundit
New York Times:
Political Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid — WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control …
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Centerfield, Hit and Run, Crooked Timber, QandO, Outside The Beltway, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, Sadly, No!, Wizbang, Wonkette, Stones Cry Out, Varifrank, The Corner on National …, Suburban Guerrilla, Instapundit.com, Kesher Talk, ArchPundit, The Huffington Post, PrestoPundit, Balloon Juice, Begging to Differ, BrothersJudd Blog, War and Piece, THE NEWS BLOG and Daily Pundit
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Daniel Henninger / Opinion Journal:
Who Calls the Cavalry? — The Pentagon was prepared for Hurricane Katrina. — "When you fly over the Gulf, it looks like a WMD exploded," Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul McHale told me this week. "Katrina very nearly approached the operational requirements of a WMD event …
Discussion:
Rantingprofs
Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Flight 93 marker design picked — Maple trees, wind chimes honor those who died — WASHINGTON — It will serve as a living tribute. With each wind, each breeze, a set of chimes housed in a 93-foot tower will create a different song in memory of the 40 people who sacrificed their lives trying to save the lives of others.
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RealClearPolitics
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Petula Dvorak / Washington Post:
Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk — Event Remembering 9/11, Troops to Be Kept 'Sterile,' Limited to Preregistered — Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert …
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Where to Point the Fingers — In less enlightened times there was no catastrophe independent of human agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and all felt better (except the witches and Jews).
Arianna Huffington / huffingtonpost.com:
The Judy File: Is Miller Getting Ready to Sing? — This just in: Judy Miller's principled, absolute stand is crumbling. — Buried in the middle of this afternoon's Reuters story on Miller, her lawyer, Floyd Abrams, offers up a bombshell: Miller is looking for an out.
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JustOneMinute, TalkLeft, firedoglake, The Next Hurrah, The Carpetbagger Report and Poynter Online
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Juliette Kayyem / tpmcafe.com:
America Abroad — 42 Minutes of Shame — All of this time about where FEMA should be, whether it should or shouldn't be part of the Department of Homeland Security or an independent agency. Well, I just finished reading the confirmation hearings for Mike Brown's appointment to be Deputy Director of FEMA …
Discussion:
The Carpetbagger Report
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Byron York / The Corner on National Review Online:MICHAEL BROWN, CONFIRMED BY DEMOCRATS
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TAPPED
Reuters:
Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina — President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas. — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.
Discussion:
Donklephant, Pam's House Blend, The Left Coaster, NewsHog, Shakespeare's Sister and The Mahablog
Radio Blogger:
Major Garrett updates us on the Red Cross AND the Salvation Army being blocked from helping by Louisiana state officials — HH: Making an encore appearance, and we're very grateful for it, Major Garrett of Fox News Channel. Major, you certainly made waves yesterday. Perhaps the most reported story in America was yours.
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
The Party of Performance — In the aftermath of Katrina, there's an opening for a different kind of politics in America. The new politics isn't about values; it isn't about settling scores. It's about performance. It's about putting a wounded, shaken country back on its feet …
Opinion Journal:
Oil for Food as Usual — The U.N.'s worst critics couldn't invent what the Volcker report shows. — "The scandal, quote, unquote, is, in my view, nonsense." Thus did Denis Halliday, a former United Nations Assistant Secretary General, opine in November 2004 on the U.N.'s Oil for Food program.
Steve Fainaru / Washington Post:
For a U.S. Platoon in Iraq, Merciless Missions — Days Are Spent Pursuing Enemy, Fending Off Death — BALAD, Iraq — On an asphalt road surrounded by apple trees and date palms, a bomb went off beneath an armored Humvee leading a midnight patrol. The towering fireball, followed by an explosion …
Thomas Lipscomb / Tech Central Station:
The Machine Stops — As Lake Ponchatrain's waters began to drown his city, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin had the colossal nerve to shout indignantly "Get off your asses, and let's do something" — and then continued doing nothing himself, but add to the deluge by bursting into tears.
Will Lester / Associated Press:
In Poll, Most Say Abandon Flooded Areas — WASHINGTON - More than half the people in this country say the flooded areas of New Orleans lying below sea level should be abandoned and rebuilt on higher ground. — An AP-Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of Americans want the vast sections …
Discussion:
Daly Thoughts