First, a little background.

People in the country remember the Hurricane Katrina scandal and the lack of leadership from unqualified FEMA director and former Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association, Michael "heck of a job" Brown.

For those who don't know, Brown was one President Bush's incompetent appointments who recieved the job as a political favor. Here's the background.

After Bush entered office in January 2001, Brown joined FEMA as General Counsel. He was the first person hired by his long-time friend, then-FEMA director Joe Allbaugh^[16], who also ran Bush's election campaign in 2000. Allbaugh later named Brown his acting deputy director in September 2001. President Bush formally nominated him as deputy director on March 22, 2002, and the Senate confirmed him many months later. Soon after, when Allbaugh left government, President Bush nominated Brown again in January 2003 for the directorship^[17]. Brown was sworn in to his position on April 15, 2003.

This is the same unqualified Brown who was confirmed to run FEMA after a breathtaking 42 minutes of questioning led by George Bush's favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman.

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 (his previous title). 42 minutes of shame (led by Senator Lieberman as he chaired the Committee on Governmental Affairs when the Democrats were in charge in 2002).

This hearing, in June 2002, was just before the official enactment of the Department of Homeland Security. So everyone knew that FEMA was likely to be subsumed, but it wasn't law yet. In the statute that eventually created the Department of Homeland Security, Section 803, Subsection (d)(2), Congress allowed for previously Senate-confirmed officers "appointed to fill new offices in the Department whose duties are germane to their original offices may be appointed without undergoing an additional confirmation proceeding."

It appears, then, that Mike Brown suffered 42 breathtaking minutes of serious nothingness (unless Lieberman's withering questioning regarding whether Brown would sufficiently keep the Senate informed --- duh,yes) to become Deputy Director of FEMA. When FEMA was, just a few months later, subsumed into DHS, Brown didn't need to be Senate confirmed as his new position -- technically as Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response -- was "germane" to his old position. Guess that's true. But it means that the four Senators who showed up to confirm a deputy director were, in fact, confirming the head of America's entire emergency management apparatus.

President Bush gave his political buddy Brown a gift by running FEMA and since there was a Republican majority (+ Joe Lieberman), a unqualified political hack was rubber-stamped by a shameless Congress to run a disaster relief agency. Hell, DINOBoy went one step further and even defended his rubberstamping of Brown.

LIEBERMAN BRAGGED ABOUT HIS OWN FEMA RUBBER STAMPING AFTER KATRINA: Lieberman did not just grease the wheels for FEMA’s collapse during Hurricane Katrina by ushering through Brown’s nomination. After Katrina, he actually bragged that he considered his own refusal to perform oversight was standard operating procedure. In an interview with National Public Radio on 9/14/05, Lieberman admitted his reflexive rubber-stamp tendencies, saying: “Our committee conducted a hearing on the nomination of Michael Brown to be deputy director of FEMA. And in the normal course honestly for deputy positions, you normally say, ‘Well, the president, if this person passes all the normal checks, has the right to choose who he wants so long as the person is in an acceptable range.’” [Source: National Public Radio, 9/14/05]

If you need a refresher of Brownie's "heck of a job" in managing the Katrina disaster, this video clip should bring back some memories...I guess Lieberman considers Brown's actions during this time something that's in "an acceptable range."

Enough background info? Good, let's continue.

Michael Brown wasn't the only unqualified cronie appointed by the President to run an agency...

Meet Julie Myers.

Who's Julie Myers you ask. Well Myers is another unqualified political hack who happens to be the niece of former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, wife of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, and the person who's now running the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Myers confirmation hearing to run ICE can just days after Michael Brown resigned as head of FEMA and during this time, her appointment came under great criticism not only from liberals and also from conservative politicians and pundits.
National Review:

Withdraw Myers

Just three days after Michael Brown resigned as head of Federal Emergency Management Administration because of the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, the Senate held a hearing for another unqualified nominee for a vital position in the Department of Homeland Security. The president’s supporters can look forward to serving in his administration, but certain key jobs ought to be reserved for candidates whose personal connections don’t outweigh their professional qualifications.

Julie L. Myers has been nominated by the White House to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a vast bureau with more than 20,000 employees and a budget of $4 billion. As head of ICE, Myers would be in charge of detaining and removing illegal aliens; investigating alien smuggling, illegal arms exports, and money laundering; fining the employers of illegal aliens (well, actually they don’t bother with that any more); plus many, many other responsibilities. She would be the officer chiefly responsible for protecting the nation against terrorist threats once they have succeeded in infiltrating our borders, which are guarded by a different bureaucracy. Her most relevant previous experience was managing only 170 employees and a $25 million budget while at the Commerce department.

Given the importance of the position and a history of mismanagement in the immigration service, Congress took the unusual step of inserting a statutory requirement that nominees have a minimum of five years of experience in both management and law enforcement. Even a cursory reading of her resume reveals that the well-connected 36-year-old attorney’s background fails to comply with this legal requirement; in fact, she meets the bare minimum only by counting her current stint in White House Personnel, where she manages, by her own account, “up to three deputies as well as support staff and interns.”

[...]

The response of House Republicans to any talk of new immigration programs has been “Enforcement First.” Replacing Myers with a more suitable candidate would signal that the White House takes these concerns seriously. Obstinately sticking to the nomination would send the opposite message.

NewsMax:

Julie Myers is 36 years old, a lawyer and a political appointee to the Bush administration with limited executive experience.

Yet, she is slated to become head of one of the nation's most critical security-related agencies, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Myers appointment, in the wake of FEMA's disastrous handling of the Katrina Hurricane and the resignation of its chief, Michael Brown, is raising the hackles of people on both sides of the political aisle.

[...]

At a Senate hearing last week, rumblings over Myers were apparent, according to the Washington Post, with Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, at one point baldly concluding that Myers' résumé indicated that she is "not qualified for the position."

Voinovich further announced at the time that he wanted to meet with Chertoff to discuss Myers' qualifications. "I'd really like to have him spend some time with us, telling us personally why he thinks you're qualified for the job..."

Michelle Malkin:

Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco. And I can tell you that contrary to the Miss Mary Sunshine White House spokeswoman's comments, rank-and-file DHS employees and immigration enforcement officials are absolutely livid about Myers' nomination.

[...]

Everything was supposed to change after 9/11. No more business as usual, blah blah blah. But when it comes to immigration enforcement and border security, Bush keeps installing clueless cronies.

[...]

Why the president wants Myers to head ICE at this critical moment in time--and why his supposedly brilliant strategists don't see the stupidity of Myers' nomination--defies comprehension.

Washington Post:

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.

[...]

ICE was created from remnants of the former immigration and customs services. It is widely viewed as one of the most troubled parts of the sprawling Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security political appointees have come under scrutiny since Michael D. Brown resigned under fire this month as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he joined with no experience in disaster preparedness. Several other senior FEMA officials were Bush supporters who did not have crisis-management credentials.

Unlike most political appointments, the head of ICE is required by statute to have at least five years of experience in both law enforcement and management.

Many immigration advocates, ICE employee representatives and homeland security experts said they were troubled by the nomination of Myers to take over an agency with so many problems.

Okay, I think you get the point.

Now with a cronie like Myers in charge of ICE, the actions of that agency after she took over makes more sense. The collegues at Blue Mass Group pick up on Myers and the recent actions of ICE in New Bedford MA that even has the governor enraged.

The appalling spectacle of hundreds of undocumented workers from New Bedford being herded into planes and flown off to Texas while state and local officials were still scrambling to see whether their kids had anyone to take care of them continues today, with DSS workers following them down to Texas to try to figure out whether their kids are OK. Governor Patrick is exactly right on this.

Two young children were hospitalized yesterday for dehydration after their nursing mothers were taken away, state officials said. Another 7-year-old girl called a state hot line seeking her detained mother. It was unclear last night where their mothers were.

"What we have never understood about this process is why it turned into a race to the airport," Patrick said. "We understand about the importance of processing; we get that. But there are families affected. There are children affected."

The Governor's sharp and totally justified comments sparked this lie from Washington:

Immigration agents "worked closely with DSS both before the operation commenced and at every stage of the operation, to be sure that no child would be without a sole caregiver," Julie L. Myers, the assistant secretary of homeland security, wrote in a letter to Patrick.

Julie Myers ... Julie Myers ... gosh, that name sounds so familiar ...

Oh yeah! Julie Myers, the hack, the well-connected crony with no relevant background who was put in her job via a recess appointment, thereby bypassing Senate confirmation that would have created a nightmarish battle for the Bush administration (because Republican as well as Democratic Senators were going on record with their concerns). Julie Myers, whose appointment to the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was so obviously inappropriate that it sparked outrage from both left and right.

Here, for the record, is what appears to have gotten her the job (from a September 2005 article):

Myers also was an associate under independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for about 16 months and has most recently served as a special assistant to President Bush handling personnel issues.

Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.

Coincidence, no doubt. Here's a sampling of what the right had to say about her nomination. Malkin:

My fellow conservatives in Washington refuse to learn two vital homeland security lessons, one from 9/11 and the other from Hurricane Katrina.

Lesson Number One: If you neglect immigration enforcement, you will regret it.

Lesson Number Two: If you appoint political cronies in times of crisis, you will regret it.

The Bush administration has barely rebounded from the resignation of horse show organizer Michael "Heck of a job" Brown at FEMA, and yet is pushing forward with the nomination of another inexperienced bureaucrat to a key post at the Department of Homeland Security.

If this is supposed to be a shining example of Karl Rove's political genius, get him some stupid pills quick.

The new crony waiting in the wings is attorney Julie Myers, the White House pick to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

And again,

Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco. And I can tell you that contrary to the Miss Mary Sunshine White House spokeswoman's comments, rank-and-file DHS employees and immigration enforcement officials are absolutely livid about Myers' nomination.

National Review:

Withdraw Myers ...

The response of House Republicans to any talk of new immigration programs has been "Enforcement First." Replacing Myers with a more suitable candidate would signal that the White House takes these concerns seriously. Obstinately sticking to the nomination would send the opposite message.

Red State:

I emphatically support the right of the president, any president, to appoint just about anyone he wants to any appointive office.... There comes a time, however, when the ability and the right to appoint persons to an office trends perilously close to abuse of that ability and right.

Julie Myers is a case in point.

And, from the left,

The Bush Administration continues its policy of handing out top Administration jobs based on cronyism. Did it not learn from Michael Brown? Apparently, not.

The latest: A 36 year old Administration lawyer named Julie Myers, who has no immigration experience, has been nominated to head up ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security....

Even the ICE agents' union is unhappy:

It appears she's got a tremendous amount of experience in money laundering, in banking and the financial areas," said Charles Showalter, president of the National Homeland Security Council, a union that represents 7,800 ICE agents, officers and support staff. "My question is: Who the hell is going to enforce the immigration laws?"

And what we're seeing right here, in New Bedford, is the result.

Hackery isn't just wasteful. It actually hurts people. It's actually hurting people right now.

You're doing a heck of a job Julie.