Brownie, that's a heck of a resume!

"Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

-- Former Edmond, OK city manager Bill Dashner, speaking of his former employee, Michael Brown
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So is anyone else reading Crooks and Liars a hell of a lot more these days? I found this over there.

Okay, we already knew that FEMA director Michael Brown was "asked to resign" from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. (Strangely, that's not mentioned in FEMA's official bio...) What we didn't know is that "Brownie's" resume, according to this article in Time magazine, has taken a few liberties with the truth.

That is to say, it's padded. Padded worse than a drag queen's bra. Hell, it's padded worse than mine. My resume, not my bra.

Among the highlights from Time:

♦ When he was hired, the White House credited Brown with "overseeing the emergency services division" for Edmond, OK. A city executive says Brown was actually an assistant to the city manager, with no authority over employees.

♦ In his profile at FindLaw.com, Brown lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University" among his honors. However, a director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (which used to be Central State University) says Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here."

♦ The FindLaw.com profile also says Brown was director of a nursing home in Edmond. Yet an administrator with the Oklahoma Christian Home says Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with."

By the way, to any prospective employers who might be checking out this blog, I was totally kidding about my resume.

But you don't have to call the University of Iowa and ask if I was a "Seriously Tenured Professor of Writing Stuff." That position, like, doesn't really exist anymore. You know, budget cutbacks and stuff. Yeah. And the people in the English department are really busy, so they probably, like, don't even have phones right now because they have so much work.

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Addendum (11:15 am): This comes via our New York correspondent Mis Hooz. Today's "Pearls Before Swine" is uncannily appropriate.

She's in the media capital of the world, folks. Are those headphones are tuned in or what?


(Image from "Pearls Before Swine" ©2005 Stephen Pastis/ Dist. by UFS, Inc.)