At today’s Roberts confirmation hearings, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) shared his fond regard for the brief 1962 Court hearings for Byron White, which “lasted all of 15 minutes and eight questions.”

Grassley told Roberts to expect a much more probing set of questions, since…

…you are the first nominee of the Internet age. With millions of eyes scrutinizing thousands of downloading pages of writing, not to mention the hundreds of website blogs characterizing the documents that have been produced in an accurate — or more likely inaccurate — way, and opining on every record that you have been involved with, and doing it by the minute. So to some extent, there is no turning back from what we have created here, and you just happen to be the latest victim of such scrutiny.

Bloggers, always characterizing documents and opining! Why won’t they just stop paying attention and let Senators hold the trite 15-minute hearings they really want?

he’s working on his crossword puzzle.

Bush at 3:39 pm EST:

Question: Have you accepted the resignation of Michael Brown or have you heard about it?
Bush: No, I have not talked to Michael Brown or Mike Chertoff – that’s who I talk to. As you know, I’ve been working.

Bush at 3:42 pm EST:

I can do more than one thing at one time. By the time I’m finished president, I hope you will realize that the government can do more than one thing at one time, and individuals in the government can.

“Maybe you know something I don’t know.”

That was President Bush’s reponse to a reporter who asked whether he had heard that his own FEMA director, Michael Brown, resigned today from the administration. For the second time today, Bush demonstrated that the Commander-in-Chief is not on top of things.

Watch: Quicktime Streaming

UPDATE: Video is back up.

AP reports:

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.

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

His decision was not a surprise. Brown was abruptly recalled to Washington on Friday, a clear vote of no confidence from his superiors at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. Brown had been roundly criticized for FEMA’s bearish response to the hurricane, which has caused political problem for Bush and fellow Republicans.

”I’m turning in my resignation today,” Brown said. ”I think it’s in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me.”

The American people shouldn’t have had to wait until Brown resigned. President Bush should have fired him long ago. His failure to do so was presidential malpractice.

UPDATE: “Brown, who said he last talked to Bush five or six days ago, said the resignation was his idea. He spoke on Saturday to White House chief of staff Andy Card, who did not request his departure, according to Brown.”

AP reports that Brownie is stepping down.

President Bush, after being asked whether he was ‘misinformed’ by his advisors before he said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees:

What I was referring to is this: When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew. There was a sense of relaxation. And that’s what I was referring to.

And I myself thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people probably over the airwaves say, The bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.

Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation at a critical moment.

President Bush’s story doesn’t hold up.

As our timeline shows, Bush learned of the serious potential that the levees could be topped as early as Sunday, well before the storm hit, during a briefing with the National Hurricane Center director. More importantly, water was flowing over the levees before Katrina hit land at 6:30 a.m. (By late Sunday night, waves were crashing over the levee walkway. By 3 a.m. on Monday, they had failed.)

So Bush’s “sense of relaxation” came long after the levees had been breached.

Federal Appellate Judge Priscilla Owen to discuss her possible nomination to the Supreme Court, Robert Novak reports. (Background on Owen here)

Buried at the end of a Washington Post article today, presidential aides offer a reason for President Bush’s delayed response: “[H]e did not want to interfere.”

While the President of the United States may not have wanted to cut short his vacation, Governor Blano, Mayor Nagin, and local officials specifically asked for his involvement.

Newsweek also reports that the President didn’t even understand the severity of the disaster until Thursday evening, four days after the hurricane made landfall, so it’s unclear whether or not he had even thought about “interfering” until then.