Psst, Bob: People don't like Brownie anymore

Gov. Bob Riley told a congressional committee Wednesday that former FEMA director Michael Brown did a good job of communicating with Alabama officials in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. That may be so, but the damage in Alabama, while intense in a few areas, was nowhere near the large-scale destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi, where Brown did considerably worse in the communication department.

Riley also asked the federal government to do more to preposition supplies and generators before hurricanes hit, which is smart disaster planning. In addition, he defended Alabama officials' decision to run background checks on Katrina evacuees before they moved into trailers in state parks. Civil libertarians complained, but more than 30 other states did the same thing, so it didn't do them much good in this case.