Stop Me If You've Heard This Lawyer Joke

Michael Brown. He's the head of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the folks charged with responding to... well, to emergencies. Like natural disasters. Hurricanes. Things like that. It takes a tough person to run an agency with so much responsibility. So who did President Bush choose to head FEMA? Michael D. Brown, Lawyer. Estate planning guy. Man-about-town, perhaps.

And what does this Lawyer Extraordinaire have to say about the disaster unfolding in New Orleans? Well, first, he blames the victims, telling CNN that "I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans." Brown failed to mention that approximately 100,000 New Orleans residents don't have cars and had no way to leave town. Nor does he mention the stranded tourists, who were booted out of their hotel only to find that... there was no way to get out of town!

But this is quite understandable; it's what lawyers do. They fight for their clients, their employers. Brown's boss is... George W. Bush, the guy seen strumming a guitar in California while thousands of people in New Orleans, their mouths and noses straining to find any remaining air pocket as their homes filled with water, were gasping their last breaths.

And what else did Brown have to say? Well, even as television reporters on the scene described the horrific conditions at the Convention Center and the Superdome, Brown was assuring us that all was well, that food and water deliveries were being made, that law and order were being restored. Never mind all those reports from the people who were there; never mind all the bodies piling up. And pay no attention to this poor soul:

All is well, or, as Brown said, "Things are going relatively well." It just depends on what your definition of the word well is. As George Bush said, "you gotta catapault the propaganda." Reality doesn't matter; message is everything.

Michael D. Brown: Worst lawyer joke. Ever.