Browntown

How many more Mike Browns are there out there?

Some -- including Henry Waxman -- point the finger at Stewart Simonson, the Assistant Scretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. If the avian flu pandemic affects the human population in a big way, Stewie will be the point man.

Is he ready? His resume is none too encouraging. Basically, he was the lawyer and "corporate secretary" (what does that mean?) for Amtrack. Then he was the deputy to the chief legal Counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services.

He was also (from 1995 to 1996) counsel to Wisconsin governor Tommy Thomson. And he's a Bush contributor.

Previously, I noted that FEMA's point woman in California -- where the Big One could hit any day now -- was a lady named Karen Armes, who seems very, very nice. She's a bean-counter with a degree in recreation. If I ran a company, I'd love to hire her as an accountant. But is she prepared to take care of an Apocalypse in L.A.?

Rove, I suspect, has already prepared a basic PR response, just in case the City of Angels gets seismically Katrina-ed. The plan will follow two basic rules: If anything about the emergency response effort goes right, credit Arnie. If anything goes wrong, blame Villaraigosa.