Deadly Indifference

Even when our government is successful, e.g., in the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, the truth of what actually occurred can be hard to come by. But when the government's actions are widely considered to have been a failure, the truth can be even more difficult to uncover. Brown was the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, and he took most of the heat for the government's poor response to the disaster. Here, he claims he was the scapegoat—and he makes a great case that there is plenty of blame to go around, with ample evidence that politicians at the local, state, and national levels were inept and concerned more about their image than the people in need. He also shows how the news media contributed to the mayhem that followed the hurricane.