Murdley Gurdson to head FEMA?

Mike Brown is now blaming everyone but himself for FEMA's problems during Hurricane Katrina. While there is plenty of blame to go around, Brownie's protestations of innocence remind the Mandarin of the lovely children's book It Wasn't My Fault by Helen Lester.

When the Mandarin's two sons were little, this was one of their favorite bedtime books. It should be required reading for every senior political appointee in the Shrub Administration.

Lester's main character, Murdley Gurdson, is a kind of Brownie-esque hard luck kid. The book begins: "Things did not always go well for Murdley Gurdson. He couldn't control the toothpaste. He fell into wastebaskets. And he dropped only valuable vases. Whatever happened, it was usually his fault." Whenever something bad happens to Murdley, like a bird laying an egg on his head, Murdley always manages to trace a wildly improbable sequence of events that leads right back to something, however innocent it seemed at the time, that Murdley himself had done.

Murdley, you're doin' a heck of a job.