Thursday, November 03, 2005
E-Mails From the Edge
CNN has posted correspondences between Michael Brown and his underlings, and they contain everything a leader in a time of crisis should never say.
He asks if there's anything he can "do or tweak" when told the situation is beyond "critical." He asks many times whether he can "quit now." I'm sorry, but when you're charged with controlling an effort to save people after disaster has struck, you don't just ask if you can take off early.
Perhaps the most sickly hilarious part of the correspondences is when one of Brown's underlings talks about telling a reporter about the positive qualities of Brown's time at the Arabian Horse Association, and without the "slanted" view being put on the fact that Brown had no prior experience with emergency management that CNN was using. It's all about fairness, y'know.
This man was no leader. He was merely an extremely lucky friend of a friend, who was truly unprepared for the very basics of what his job entailed. "Can [he] quit now?" If anything, he should have quit long ago.
He asks if there's anything he can "do or tweak" when told the situation is beyond "critical." He asks many times whether he can "quit now." I'm sorry, but when you're charged with controlling an effort to save people after disaster has struck, you don't just ask if you can take off early.
Perhaps the most sickly hilarious part of the correspondences is when one of Brown's underlings talks about telling a reporter about the positive qualities of Brown's time at the Arabian Horse Association, and without the "slanted" view being put on the fact that Brown had no prior experience with emergency management that CNN was using. It's all about fairness, y'know.
This man was no leader. He was merely an extremely lucky friend of a friend, who was truly unprepared for the very basics of what his job entailed. "Can [he] quit now?" If anything, he should have quit long ago.
