October 6, 2005

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

Points finger at President, local officials, Angelina Jolie

Following up his testimony to a panel of lawmakers on Tuesday, former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown today published a 2,000-page book of people he blames for the poor emergency response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The book, entitled “People Other Than Me Who Should Be Blamed,” has received mix reviews from the press, with the New York Times calling it “The Da Vinci Code of finger-pointing.”

But Mr. Brown defended his decision to write the book, telling reporters, “My only regret is that I didn’t have another 2,000 pages to blame more people.”

The book contains the names of virtually every federal and local official, including President Bush and the governor of Louisiana, but it also includes the New Orleans phone book in its entirety.

“Let’s face it, the people of New Orleans took their merry time in getting out of there,” Mr. Brown said.

The ex-FEMA chief also explained the surprising inclusion of actress Angelina Jolie on the list: “I’m sure she was on the minds of some of the male emergency workers and that made it harder for them to concentrate.”

As for his future, Mr. Brown said that he resigned from FEMA to spend more time with his family, but acknowledged that because of poor planning it might take days or even weeks for him to reach his family.

Elsewhere, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said that he only sold his HCA Inc. stock at a great personal profit because he saw a videotape of Terry Schiavo in which she appeared to be telling him to do so.

For more from Andy Borowitz go to www.borowitzreport.com. Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humor columnist whose work can be found in Newsweek and other publications.