"He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Matt Welch | September 9, 2005

I think I can speak for most college dropouts when I say that there are few flavors of schadenfreude more tasty than watching some Type A kiss-ass get caught with a padded resume. When it's the disastrous director of FEMA, well, all the better.

Comments

|9.9.05 @ 2:38AM|#

As quoted from Avenue Q...
Right now you are down and out, and feeling really crappy (I'll say)
And when I see how sad you are, it sort of makes me...
...happy! (happy?!?)
Sorry Nicky, human nature, nothing I can do
It's Schadenfreude
Making me feel glad that I'm not you!

But, in any case, knowing that FEMA's head was lying through his teeth on paper years before lying through his teeth about Katrina is a satisfying thought. That's not schadenfreude, though it IS poetic.

I suppose I should be surprised and appalled at the lack of a real background check he got, but I'm not. At all.

|9.9.05 @ 3:22AM|#

You know when I read the headline I figured that had to be some hokey literary reference or something.

|9.9.05 @ 7:18AM|#

Ironically, I had originally been attracted to Investor's Business Daily because of its spirited help-wanted ads in the trades, seeking candidates who "go against the grain" or "think outside of the box" or whatever.

Pardon me for stating the obvious, but what in living hell does sitting in classes between the ages of 18 and 22 have the slightest fucking bit to do with "going against the grain?"

>

I know a little about hiring biases, having been terribly biased while hiring people for much of the past 11 years. At the last newspaper job I had, as managing editor of the Budapest Business Journal, I had a thing -- quite reasonably, I think -- against people with Journalism school degrees, people over 35, people who had never lived abroad, people from Ivy League schools, people with no relevant experience, and people with spouses.

Is this supposed to be serious? A guy who would reduce the world to his little narcissistic box complains about others not thinking outside the box?

If you are going to compare yourself to those named people then why don't you do whatever they did to overcome their handicap? Or do "libertarian rules" not apply to you?

|9.9.05 @ 7:57AM|#

He's the head of a government agency. Of course he's a liar.

He may have lost the suit, but at least he still has that starched white shirt.

|9.9.05 @ 8:27AM|#

Here we are, in a country with an army of lawyers, who will litigate at the drop of a hat, yet we cannot sue government agencies/officials for their incompetence, negligence, and death caused by their actions/inactions. Shit even ATLA would agree to that.

|9.9.05 @ 8:44AM|#

I wouldn't care if Brown was actually a cooking-school dropout, if he showed a shred of competency.

I doubt Jabbar Gibson was certified to drive that bus, either.

|9.9.05 @ 8:47AM|#

Did you see the Washington Post story on the "Freedom" march? Key excerpt:

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

Sounds like freedom.

|9.9.05 @ 8:49AM|#

FEMA always had a huge nest of lawyers, who focus 90% of their energy towards bureaucratic ass coverage. This often got in the way of anything actually getting done. So it's not a big stretch that one of these weasels gets to be the big chief.

As much as I loath to admit it (and believe me, it's painful), I 100% agree with Rodham's effort to seperate FEMA from the DHS. And people trying to derail her by squawking about the 2008 election are being dishonest.

|9.9.05 @ 8:52AM|#

Dinglehorn:

You can't be that obtuse, can you? Re-read it again if you still fail to grasp the point.

In fact, I'll save you the time:

1) The IBD sought those who "think outside the box", but rejected him because he didn't have a degree.

2) He feels that "having a degree" is not a requirement of "going against the grain", as a great many people do it.

3) He knows something about biased hiring, and then goes on to list some of those biases.

4) Thus, his POINT was that HIS hiring biases were more relevant to the job at hand, and thus more valid, than simply whether someone had a college degree.

Christ, Dangle...having no biases (or, judging all biases equally) isn't a libertarian rule.

|9.9.05 @ 8:58AM|#

Mista N-Iceguy:

Some dude on some daytime NPR talk program a couple days ago said that separating FEMA from DHS is a bad idea, cuz it would "just add another set of phone numbers to call"...

Warren|9.9.05 @ 9:14AM|#

Boo hoo hoo. Life is unfair. The world won't supply me with a living. Hey Matt, here that? It's the saddest violin in the world, and it's playing just for you.

Regarding the padded resume, hadn't we already established that everybody on the government payroll is a lying cheating thief. Personally, I'm prepared to believe that every salaried job holder on the planet owes his paycheck to false advertising. As an Electrical Engineer who never once so much as copied a lab report in obtaining his BSEE (from Rochester Institute of Technology), and who'd resume contains not even an exaggeration or embellishment, I'm finding it difficult to find work. Where is this economic recovery I keep hearing about? [que violin solo]

Warren|9.9.05 @ 9:16AM|#

broken link fix
already established

BTW what does tha preview button do?

|9.9.05 @ 9:21AM|#

EW:

Dude, that really cracked me up. Thanks :)

I find it weird, too, that NPR would question anything that Rodham is trying to do. Except maybe, this time, because she is right.

|9.9.05 @ 9:37AM|#

"Christ, Dangle...having no biases (or, judging all biases equally) isn't a libertarian rule. "

Not that I disagree, but I thought Matt was making an even more nuanced point. Bias are fine, and in fact a good thing. It's when you turn them into hard and fast rules that you get into trouble.

Hence, preferring someone with a college degree isn't a problem. But rejecting someone who otherwise appears to be a perfect candidate merely because he lacks a college degree is turning a bias into a self-defeating rule. Something along the lines of losing site of the forest (ability to do the job) for the trees (any particular qualification).

I'd love to say that such thinking is purely a government symptom, but I've seen it too much in the private sector. The problem starts in academia and has imported itself out to the private sector.

|9.9.05 @ 9:50AM|#

Hey Warren,

I spent about a year unemployed, wondering what was going on, and then I had a friend look at my resume and give me a giant dope slap. In my earnestness to not pad my resume, or come off like I was, I ended up giving myself a lot less credit for stuff that was largely my idea, my hard work, etc. So he helped me spruce it up and lo, it looked a hell of a lot better. I guess my point is that it's possible to de-pad your resume in the effort to seem honest.

My pops once told me that the point of a resume is the same as that of a movie trailer - you're not trying to tell the whole story, just show all the explosions and stunts to get people to want to check it out. Packing them all in there isn't really false advertising if they end up in the movie, to extend the metaphor. Then again, if you're packing in explosions from another movie, you've got a point there.

Anyway my whole experience with getting jobs is networking networking networking. I think I had maybe two interviews that were cold calls or resume submissions, all the rest were for jobs referred to me by friends and colleagues. I also used to have a problem with this too, until my mom made the point that "they got you the interview, you got you the job."

I don't know why this suddenly turned into a career development seminar but I hope your job prospects pick up.

|9.9.05 @ 9:57AM|#

That kind of narrow, rulebound thinking about hiring qualifications has invaded academia, the private sector, and the nonprofit sector, as well as government. As someone with no high school or college degree, self-employment has been my best bet.

|9.9.05 @ 10:01AM|#

Resumes are a form of advertising and anything short of a flat-out lie is fair game and expected.

I get the feeling this Brown guy is being set up to push accountability as far down the food chain as possible. Just like the succesful campaign to blame Abu Gharib on a handful of enlisted hillbillies.

|9.9.05 @ 10:05AM|#

Matt,

You're better off: apart from the CANSLIM method, there is nothing worth reading in IBD. I've tried reading one a couple of times, but the grammatical constructions drive me nuts, every time. Nigh on unreadable. It gives me a much greater respect for The Economist, and especially WSJ. As far as the Ivy League bias of yours, well, too bad I won't ever work for you, unless you can stow your anti-elitism when I mention my degree came from what was known as the New York State College of Home Economics until 1969.

The Wine Commonsewer|9.9.05 @ 10:06AM|#

I'm one who puts little stock in credentials. Unfortunately, after five decades of public schools screaming at students that if you don't get a college degree you're going to end up digging ditches the rest of your life we have a society that is obsessed with credentials.

That said, I can understand the motivation to pad your qualifications but I just can't understand why someone in the public eye would be stupid enough to figure on getting away with it.

Heard a story the other day from a reliable source about a guy who was the president of a fraternal-type organization of ex-SEALS. Turned out he was never a SEAL although he talked a pretty good game. It took them a while but he was eventually outed.

|9.9.05 @ 10:10AM|#

Warren,

Theirs no argueing with teh preview button.

|9.9.05 @ 10:11AM|#

In the realm of politics, the slime tends to make its way to the top.

The Wine Commonsewer|9.9.05 @ 10:12AM|#

Actually, Brown should be fired for posing as the Great White Lackey in the pix where he pretends to show GWB (looking all interested) how the problem in La is being solved. Gag Me With A Picklefork.

Geoff Nathan|9.9.05 @ 10:25AM|#

This morning I heard Brown being quoted as not having known there were people being directed to the Superdome until three days after the hurricane. I just looked around CNN's website and found a similar reference to this claim. Since I knew before Katrina hit (it was heavily covered on CNN, at least) and the roof blowing off was major news as the winds picked up, Brown must have been living in a bubble during the hurricane. Just what you want from the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency...

|9.9.05 @ 10:25AM|#

"I get the feeling this Brown guy is being set up to push accountability as far down the food chain as possible."

Excellent observation. You hear next to nothing being said about the secretary of Homeland Security. He must feel like a guy who was inches from being hit by a bus and watch as some schmuck is ground under the wheels.

I'm very surprised that, at this point, Brownie hasn't been publicly butchered and executed like William Wallace. I think it would be cool if Brownie, given that he will most certainly be shit-canned, got drunk and went on a rant on live TV.

|9.9.05 @ 10:58AM|#

I'm actually big on academic credentials (obviously). They're one way of proving your worth, and if you make the most of your time spent in school there's really no substitute for it.

Note that "making the most" is not always the same as "doing what you're supposed to", and "making the most" will usually not appear in your GPA. Rather, it will show up elsewhere on your resume, in things that are tremendously educational and easiest to pursue when you have few responsibilities and are willing to live on a limited budget. Of course, many people find other ways to pursue these ends. For some reason, though, people are often impressed if you do these things while in school.

But I'm not dumb enough to think that academic credentials are the only indicator of merit either. And I'm not dumb enough to think that a degree alone means all that much.

Finally, Matt, I didn't realize you were a Gaucho. That's where I got my Ph.D.!

|9.9.05 @ 11:05AM|#

It occured to me yesterday that it was pretty soon after Hurricane Isabel ripped North Carolina a new orifice (a Hatteras Island inlet, that is) that Tom Ridge was all over the airwaves announcing that DHS would rebuild Highway 12. I figured this thread would be a good place to check it out.

Yup - landfall Sept 18 2003, DHS all over the "Island Breach Project" Sept 22 (as well as all kinds of other emergency assistance efforts)

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=5008
http://www.fema.gov/emanagers/2003/nat092203.shtm

|9.9.05 @ 11:13AM|#

It's amazing how many commenters enjoy mangling my name. Never happens when I employ a non-Italian pseudonym.

Welch chose to personalize the matter. Welch refuses to meet the qualifications standards of the industry called journalism. Welch complains of not being able to afford health insurance for his wife for refusing to meet those qualifications.

Welch blames his problems on the market-derived standards of the US journalism industry while indicating a preference for some place less free.

Is this a libertarian rag or has it gone Social Democrat?

BTW - If any ol' BA will do then someone with Matt's knowledge could have one in a matter of months and at minimal cost and without suffering a single classroom.

|9.9.05 @ 11:16AM|#

Matt Welch observes that a bunch of people have made a certain decision. Matt Welch thinks its dumb and it sucks. Matt Welch says so without calling for any sort of coercive remedy. Meanwhile, Matt Welch finds employment eventually.

What's wrong with that?

|9.9.05 @ 11:25AM|#

There is nothing "unlibertarian" about identifying something you disagree with, for moral or other reasons. And to speak out against it. In fact, personal responsibility would dictate that it is not only your right but your duty to speak out on such subjects.

What is "unlibertarian" is suggesting a coercive or governmental "solution" for that something.

I haven't seen Matt advocate any coercive "solutions" for the problem.

Matt Welch|9.9.05 @ 11:47AM|#

Christ on a stick, people, that bit of whinery was written more than seven years ago, when your narcissistic narrator was back from eight years abroad & feeling ronery; I linked to it to make fun of myself as much as anything else. Having now made that mistake, I'll just echo quasibill's non-complicated reading & point out that hiring biases are understandable (and legal, where I used to work & live), but arbitrary Rules can be silly and counter-productive, especially in non-technical fields.

And D Anghelone ... you're funny.

|9.9.05 @ 11:51AM|#

Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

-Douglas Bader, British WWII pilot

|9.9.05 @ 12:11PM|#

I guess that Brown's padded resume is not an issue as it was to circumvent arbitrary rules. Being a wise man, Brown treated those rules as mere guidance.

Matt Welch|9.9.05 @ 12:16PM|#

D -- That works great, unless honesty means anything to you.

And actually, in this specific case, his paddings didn't satisfy any arbitrary requirements, they just made him seem ever-so-slightly less unsuitable for the job.

|9.9.05 @ 1:28PM|#

You wouldn't believe what I've sacrificed to honesty.

Rules as mere guidance to "wise men" (they, undoubtedly, who make the rules) is an RAF thing and not mine.

How goes that quote? "When the British start losing the game is when they change the rules."?

|9.9.05 @ 2:26PM|#

Matt (et. al.),

The quote was directed towards your experience with IBD, and was not intended to justify any of our fearless FEMA leader's resume padding (or any other dishonesty). Sorry for the confusion.

In the simplest example, let's say I stop at a traffic light late at night, when the strets are fairly deserted. I wait for a few minutes and the light doesn't change. It's clear to me that the light is malfunctioning. Do I turn around and find another way home? No, I look carefully and proceed through the intersection.

IIRC, Bader's quote arose from his belief that the people at the front lines were in the best place to make decisions, rather than the higher-ups who were far removed from battle. As an example in the current situation, this could imply that the police in NO should allow well-equipped and competent survivors to remain in the evacuation zone, rather than force them to evacuate. (Referencing a later Hit & Run thread.)

|9.9.05 @ 2:50PM|#

It's the saddest violin in the world, and it's playing just for you.

It's "the world's smallest violin, playing just for you" and it's said while rubbing your index finger and thumb together. Get it right or don't use it.

|9.9.05 @ 4:01PM|#

In a similar vein, people throw things "right down the pipe." They don't throw things "right down the pike."

Things, usually knows as "whatever" come down the pike, but they are not thrown.

|9.12.05 @ 10:22PM|#

James Lee Witt, the head of FEMA under Clinton, never went to college.