Friday, November 4, 2005

"[Y]ou just need to look more hard-working"

The e-mail exchanges between FEMA's Michael Brown and associates as New Orleans lay underwater make for fascinating, appalling reading. I've seen the following bit reproduced on-line only with the spelling and punctuation cleaned up. Here's what Sharon Worthy, Brown's press secretary, wrote to him on September 4:

Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt...all shirts. Even the President rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow.

In this crises [sic] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working...ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!
Ah, the culture of images: "you just need to look more hard-working." Now that this e-mail is out, will politicians and bureaucrats have to find some new way to look hard-working?

LINK: "'Can I quit now?' FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged" (from CNN.com)

LINK: Katrina e-mails (a .pdf file from CNN.com)

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