BROWN: FADE TO BLACK, BUT WHO'S IN CHARGE NOW?

"It's never fun being the fall guy, and I'm not certain I'm being made to be the fall guy. But if being the fall guy gets done everything I want to get done, fine."

Michael D. Brown, now former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Monday after the announcement that he had resigned.

It was clear that someone was going to have to "take one for the team" after FEMA's bungled efforts in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Brown had put his head figuratively in the noose on several occasions during the past couple of weeks..

Needless to say, the South Florida Sun Sentinel celebrates the decision:

Brown, a patronage appointee with no previous disaster management experience, has been an embarrassment to FEMA, the Bush administration and the nation since the Sun-Sentinel revealed last year that the agency had paid more than $31 million in Hurricane Frances relief to people in Miami-Dade County, which officially had no hurricane conditions and no storm-related damage.

This year, however, when Hurricane Katrina did significant damage in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, FEMA has refused to pay a dime to victims in those counties -- a stupid decision at best and a vengeful one at worst.

Only when the entire country recognized Brown's utter incompetence in the wake of Katrina's devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast did others join those calls. On Monday, Brown finally did the right thing and quit the agency.

Brown's replacement is R. David Paulison, who had been Acting Under Secretary and U.S. Fire Administrator since December, 2001. Prior to joining the federal government, the registered Democrat was Chief for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. He was generally lauded for his leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew when it slammed into South Florida in 1992 and during the crash of ValuJet flight 592 in the Everglades four years later.

Paulison was also the person who, in 2003, suggested that Americans have duct tape and plastic sheeting as part of their preperation to protect themselves and their homes in the event of a biological, chemical, or radiological terrorist attack. The idea is that if such an attack did occur, it would help in sealing doors and windows to protect lethal agents from seeping into your home.