Something for liberals to ponder: Mike Brown, the clearly-unqualified show horse official and unaccredited law school graduate, who went from being a non-practicing lawyer in Colorado to running FEMA, had to undergo one confirmation hearing before the Senate. In 2002, as the President's nominee to be Deputy Director of FEMA, he went before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Senator Joe Lieberman (yes, the Democrats controlled the Senate at the time), and the hearing lasted forty-two minutes.

From there, his nomination went to the floor of the Senate, where he was confirmed without opposition by voice vote. Rather than blaming the local elected officials, such as Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin, who may have made mistakes but were clearly overwhelmed by the scope of the catastrophe, I think any conservative with a smidgen of intellectual integrity should hang his hat on this example, of how "vigorously" Senate Democrats exercised their Constitutional responsibility to advise and consent when the Brown nomination came before them. [link via TPM Cafe]