All Talk

As the inimitable (and very rude) Rude Pundit, our blogfriend, points out, the President's cronyfied head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, talked a pretty good game before the big one hit.

Brown, whose dismal performance, we cannot stress enough, the President is personally responsible for, was very proud of a "hurricane liaison team" FEMA put together for Hurricane Isabel. This liaison team kept state and local authorities in touch with each other, so they could coordinate efforts. It sounds like a great idea, but I guess it wasn't an idea that survived the turnover that comes with a new Presidential term.

When the big test came, Brown and his boss were found wanting. They care more about how things look, and how people talk about the disaster, than fixing the disaster. The President goes on TV and says his foremost concern is saving lives, but his actions tell a different story. For this President and the people who work for him, the people who run our government, looking good and sounding good are more important than being good.

In our opinion, this is a direct result of the President's evangelical religious faith. The President comes out of the holiness tradition, which says that, when you take Jesus into your heart, it changes you. The President used those exact words to describe his faith.

This way of thinking creates people who believe that saying "I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior" is more important than any action one might take. This means that the President thinks it is more important for him to say he wants to save lives than it is for him to actually save lives. And he hires people who think the same way he does.