TGIF

Looks like we may have a fall guy over the hurricane. And the winner (wiener?) is....FEMA Head Michael Brown! Time Magazine has written up an investigation of Brownie's credentials and found them seriously lacking. Will our hero be rescued yet again by his old college roomie, Joe Allbaugh? Will the Potemkin President demonstrate yet again that the party trumps everything and not fire him?

And please check out this photo over at Eschaton. If you like "The Office" (BBC version) you'll appreciate it.

The Fly Trap, which is the blog of The Gadflyer, asks an interesting question:

Is Mayor Ray Nagin a Democrat or a Republican?

Before his election, Nagin was a member of the Republican Party and had little political experience; he was a vice president and general manager at Cox Communications, a cable communications company and subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Nagin did give donations periodically to candidates, namely President George W. Bush and former Republican U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, as well as to Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston earlier in the decade.

[...]

Days before filing for the New Orleans Mayoral race in February 2002, Nagin switched his party registration to the Democratic Party....

Shortly after taking office, Nagin launched an anti-corruption campaign within city government, which included crackdowns on the city's Taxicab Bureau and Utilities Department. Nagin also made a controversial endorsement of current Republican U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal in the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff over current Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco, and only reluctantly endorsed U.S. Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential race.

Verrry interesting.

Here's a guy who left a $400,000 job to run for Mayor of New Orleans, which pays about 1/4th of that. He switches parties but continues to support Republicans and gave to B-C in 2000. As the story asks, Are the Republicans sure they want to go after this guy?

Scott Shields over at MyDD reminds us that it's not just New Orleans that's been affected and when Biloxi and Gulfport were hit by Katrina, DHS and FEMA were AWOL too. "Media attention is mostly trained on New Orleans so that's where the administration's efforts are focused. For Bush, the response to Katrina is less about saving lives than saving face. But don't take my word for it. Lynne Lofton of Gulfport, Mississippi was quite critical of the recent trip by VP Cheney and AG Gonzales to her hometown."

Not ones to let the grass grow under their feet, David Sirota says that the GOP has unveiled its slogan for the 2006 election cycle. It's crisp, clear, and tells us everything we already knew about today's GOP, David says.

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo.com has a link to the grueling 42 minute confirmation hearing then-chairman Joe Lieberman put Michael Brown through when he was appointed Deputy Director of FEMA in 2002.

And some additional news you might not have heard: Maura Keaney, Democracy for Virginia founder and Executive Director, has moved to Connecticut to take a job closer to her family. I know many of us first met Maura during the Dean for America days and got to know her through the blog. She was a great contributor and did a lot to get DfVA off the ground. She will be missed but I hope we hear from her soon!