I don't like Brownie, if he was really a heckuva guy he would have turned down the FEMA appointment. That said, I was once in a job where the upper management was a complete and utter joke, a coddled pretense, while we in the middle took enormous flack. I found myself saying arch things to coworkers in an ironic way, a sort of "Fuck it, the bosses don't take it seriously, why should we?" while being deluged with work and unhappy people who are on the receiving end of managerial arrogance and incompetence.

So I kind of understand some of Brown's email wisecracks. Now that we know he gave Bush a warning that all hell could break loose and that preparations should be made for a large scale disaster, it puts Brownie's performance in a different light. Like many of us, once in the thick of a predicted calamity, Brownie found himself alone out there. His bosses were sunning themselves, strumming guitars, arranging "concerned" photo ops and posing for an Air Force One flyby on the way home to DC from a fundraiser while the waters were swamping much of a city. I can imagine being tired, disgusted, strung out and not knowing which shirt to wear, then cracking "Don't I look gorgeous?" as an in-joke, a sarcastic "Is this fucking GREAT or what?"

So I confer a little slack on Brownie. But he's getting too puffed up with himself these days.

What is wrong with people? We know the story. We know the principal players. We know how it ends. The families of the victims have been on television for countless numbers of hours. Why keep making this film? Why keep watching these films? Because of "heroism"? The people in the plane never got to the cockpit. They didn't bring the plane down. All that talk of the passengers crashing the plane was "Jessica Lynch Rescue"-style spin. Yes, they tried to do something out of desperation. They had more time than the people in the planes which hit the WTC. They were able to speak to their families from the plane. One man, in fact, called an operator from the plane's bathroom and told the operator that there was an explosion outside of the plane, there was smoke and that the plane was going down. Witnesses in the area reported another, fast-moving plane in the area. Some heard up to 3 loud bangs before they saw the plane bank and crash. Most likely, the plane was shot down. Will they put that in the movie? I doubt it. Will they also claim that the plane was "on its way to the White House" even though every experienced terror expert believes it was headed for the Pentagon, to complete the job? A cardinal rule for terror attacks is to follow up the first attack with a second attack at the same location, timed to kill rescuers and to complete the destruction.

Make a movie about Flight 93 when America is grown-up enough to hear the truth. And they should make a movie about TWA Flight 800 while they're at it, showing that it was shot down by a missile like all those people on the ground said it was. Then portray the coverup.

Until then, stop making the same movies telling the same lies.

(And please don't put Lisa Beamer back on TV again. Hasn't America had enough of Cry-On-Cue Lisa and her line of Let's Roll™ jewelry)