W was right?

Following the release of video of the Presidential briefing the day before Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast, one can make the case that Bush was correct when he made his famous statement, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

The video shows that Brownie had a solid understanding of the situation and expressed his concerns to the President. You get the distinct sense that Brownie understood that there were neither all the right types nor all the right amounts of resources in place to handle highly likely events. I imagine that, had he had the authority, he would have directed a much different response.

So Brownie was doing the best job that could be done given his authority. Maybe we were too quick to denigrate his prior experience as head of the Doogie Howser Fan Club, or whatever it was. And maybe his current gig doing disaster planning consulting isn't the farce that we've been lead to believe.