BREAKING: Brown resigns FEMA job

WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown said Monday he has resigned "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president," three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Brown, under fire for FEMA's performance in the Gulf Coast, said he feared he had become a distraction.

"The focus has got to be on FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there," Brown told The Associated Press.

By the way, MSNBC has bloggers in Louisiana -- in today's post they reach a point where a state highway simply descends into floodwaters, though there are four small towns farther down the road. This is south of New Orleans, an area no one has even mentioned yet.