The Battle of the Browns

After a decade and a half of living in Cincinnati, I was certain that the inept head of FEMA had to be the same Mike Brown that is the inept owner of the Cincinnati Bengals. A little bit of research revealed that they are in fact different people, so there are (at least) two incredibly inept Mike Browns on this planet.

In the interest of public information, I thought I'd research any other browns I could think of for a Brown Battle Royale.

Mike Brown. In one week's time, this Mike Brown was told by President Bush that he's doing "a heck of a job" with handling the Katrina mess, and then was relieved of his duties in a public and humilating fashion shortly thereafter. To make his fifteen minutes of fame even more complete, we learn that his major qualification for the post of head of the FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY was that he oversaw the judges and standards for a national Arabian Horse Group. Then we learn that he even padded his resume by saying he was a city manager in Podunk, Oklahoma when in fact he had only been an intern to one of Podunk's City Managers. Brown was hired onto the FEMA team by Joe Allbaugh, a college buddy of Brown's who had helped Bush's campaign and in return was made the head of FEMA. When Allbaugh left FEMA, Brown got the nod. I'm glad that our federal government takes our emergency management so seriously. The Village Idiot awards this Mike Brown an A+ in Bumbling Idiotocity.



Mike Brown. This Mike Brown took over the Cincinnati Bengals from his father, who founded the team, and promptly turned them into the losingest team in Professional Football. In the 1990's they managed an astoundingly bad record of 52-108-0, and in the 2000's they have been 28-52-0. This degree of crappiness is especially impressive in the NFL, a league that prides itself on parity. This Mike Brown, having done nothing to earn his position save being born into the right family, seems to be carrying on the family tradition nicely. His daughter is the team's executive vice president and her husband is in charge of the team's business development. The Senior Vice President of Player Personnel is Pete Brown and the Vice President of Player Personnel is Paul Brown. Eric Brown is the Managing Director of Paul Brown Stadium, which, despite the name, was built by the taxpayers of Hamilton County, Ohio on some seriously seriously valuable riverfront real estate. The people of Cincinnati were calling for this man's head starting in 1998, but through some sort of magical spell, he was able to hold them off until 2002, when he hired coach Marvin Lewis, who has been able to coach that team to a reasonably respectable 8-8 record in each of the last two years. Because they seem to have forgotten the awful teams this guy gave them in the '90s, I give the City of Cincinnati an A+ in Bumbling Idiocity, while this Mike Brown gets a rating of sheer fricking genius. His "Slimeball," "Nepotist" and "General Boob" ratings are off the chart, however.



Downtown Julie Brown. Mtv VeeJay from the 1980s famous for being hot and having a British accent which made he even hotter, especially compared to the other Browns on this list. (She was born in Cardiff, Wales, a city whose mean streets I have actually travelled). She was, in fact, so hot that I would have overlooked her annoying little catch phrase ("wubba wubba wubba") had our paths crossed when I was still on the dating market. She was able to extend her fifteen minutes of fame by another minute by appearing nude in Playboy after her Mtv career ended, and has been desperately trying to extend it further by appearing in various celebrity reality shows, none of which I've seen. This Brown has the distinction of being the only Brown on the list so far who actually earned her career on merit and skill rather than birth order or cronyism. Having seen the issue of Playboy, her General Boob rating is an A+, and as I probably actually once said "wubba wubba wubba" in a desperate attempt to sound hip, I'll also give her a rating of Sheer Fricking Genius.


Leroy Brown. In researching Browns for this story, I learned that the most famous stud llama in llama breeding history is Chillean Leroy Brown. When the llama industry took off in this country, Leroy was furiously doing his duty to provide the nation with as many little llamas as he possibly could. He did his duty well apparently, as a quick search of llama breeders in America indicates that there are many many descendents of Ol' Leroy out there. The second Brown on our list to be an immigrant who made it big in America, I have to say that this Brown may be my favorite of the bunch, as he never made me say "wubba wubba wubba." Also, as he was imported into this land for the express purpose of mating, I have to say that he is in fact not only the recipient of the sheer genius rating, but he is also my new hero.