From Scout:

I won’t call Michael Brown by that other name for once. Maybe it’s that he said he should have gone public at the time. Maybe it’s wanting to understand and even a small measure of respect for a man who is attempting to admit his mistakes and telling others to learn from them. It must be hell to find redemption if you’re Michael Brown. Maybe it’s because I know he at least seeks it while others…….well read for yourself:

WATERFORD — The former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who resigned after the government’s bungled Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts acknowledged his mistakes at a homeland security conference in Waterford on Wednesday and urged the crowd not to make the same ones.

Addressing a standing-room only crowd of 370 emergency responders, public safety officers and elected officials, Michael Brown was candid about his mistakes and regrets in the aftermath of Katrina last August. The hurricane left death, destruction and chaos in its wake along the Gulf Coast.

Brown said he was never able to get a unified command structure in place after the hurricane hit and should have ignored orders to stay in Baton Rouge rather than being on site in New Orleans. And while FEMA staff grasped the seriousness of the situation before Katrina hit, calling it “the big one,” he said President Bush was overconfident.

“The rest of government was slow to grasp that it was a potentially catastrophic event,” he said.

Brown said he also should have “gone public” when his agency didn’t get the response he needed from the Defense Department and military for help. His biggest mistake was not leveling with the American public like he should have, he said.

“Don’t do what I did,” said Brown, now a consultant for Jarvis Construction and Disaster Recovery of Harrison Township who lives in Washington D.C. and Colorado. “It involves people’s lives. It involves destruction of property. It’ll affect everything from that point on. Do what is right.”

Bush was “overconfident.” That and I don”t think he ever really gave a damn. What I think is more important here is what Brown says of the Defense Dept. I wrote previously on how Donald Rumsfeld has flown under the Katrina Blame Radar all this time. I would ask you to go read it to learn how Rumsfeld was just as disengaged, as Bush vacationing in Crawford, as Cheney off fishing and Condi shopping for shoes. I’d ask you to go read it to see how he dropped the ball on what were suppose to be HIS responsibilities under the National Response Plan. I’d ask you to go read it to learn that he never really cooperated with any investigations as the Senate committee had to subpoena HIS communications much of which they never received.

You ever heard Don Rumsfeld say he did anything wrong? In fact I can’t remember Rummy saying Anything about Katrina. Rummy knows how to avoid the flak….let some other poor bastard take it. (there’s about 140,000 doing that now in Iraq). He may know how to walk between the rain drops but he’s a poor excuse of a man. I’ll take a disgraced yet repentent Mr. Brown anyday over the soulless shell that is Drownie Don.