My wife told me about Oprah's trip down to interview the refugees from Katrina. And this got me thinking.
Throughout this disaster the press consistently got in there first. FEMA found out about the 20,000 people at the convention center from CNN (see Soledad O'Brien interview with Mr. Useless, aka Michael Brown).
Oprah went down there and brought food, water, and hugs from media stars to some of the hardest hit places. She reunited families. She brought out people and their pets that were stranded. She did more with less than anything I've seen from FEMA to date.
So, why not put Oprah in charge of FEMA for the next 3 months? And have her bring her staff in as her department heads. She clearly can do a better job than FEMA is at present. And she brings some tremendous assets that no political appointee can bring.
She can get the CEO of any company in the world on the phone and get anything she needs from them. She can bring enormous pressure to bear where needed to get roadblocks out of the way. And she could be running things effectively within hours of being given the job.
All it takes is for George Bush to ask her. Because I don't see how she could say no facing such a horrible situation where the present top people not only have horribly mismanaged things so far, but clearly will continue to do so.
