Your clown show dollars at work:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s No. 2 official apologized Friday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters while real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions. … FEMA announced the news conference at its headquarters here about 15 minutes before it was to begin Tuesday afternoon, making it unlikely that reporters could attend. Instead, FEMA set up a telephone conference line so reporters could listen.
In the briefing, parts of which were televised live by cable news channels, Johnson stood behind a lectern, called on questioners who did not disclose that they were FEMA employees, and gave replies emphasizing that his agency’s response to this week’s California wildfires was far better than its response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
“It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly … I should have stopped it,” said John “Pat” Philbin, FEMA’s director of external affairs. “I hope readers understand we’re working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it.”
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abb1 10.27.07 at 1:58 pm
Wtf indeed. If I was a theonion writer, I would’ve killed myself.
aaron_m 10.27.07 at 2:04 pm
This is more like a holly WTF wow!
P O'Neill 10.27.07 at 2:22 pm
The more serious point is that the conservatives apparently view the Potemkin news conference as the only blemish on what was otherwise an undoing of all Bush’s incompetence on Katrina.
airth10 10.27.07 at 2:22 pm
That the leadership of FEMA apologized so quickly and The White House condemned it so quickly means that things have changed for the better. Two years age FEMA and The White House would have ignored the criticism and brushed it off. Bush instead might have said to Johnson, ” Great job Johnsy”.
Accountability and response has improved since Katrina. But one could be cynical and say this is due to the fact that the losses occurred to rich, white people. Nevertheless, I think this administration is maybe beginning to understand what government is for and what the people really expect from it.
Arnaud 10.27.07 at 2:47 pm
airth10:
After 7 years? You guys should repeal the 22nd amendment if it takes so long to learn the job!
bi 10.27.07 at 2:54 pm
P. O’Neill:
Quick, someone blame the Potemkin conference on Clinton!
Alex 10.27.07 at 3:36 pm
So those German TV reports probably were bang on the money…
airth10 10.27.07 at 4:05 pm
Arnaud,
The thing is this administration didn’t want to learn ‘the job’. They wanted to abolish it or out-source it. Now they are kind of understanding out-sourcing has made things worse for them and that the people are unhappy with it.
What does the 22 amendment have to do with it?
Arnaud 10.27.07 at 4:13 pm
Isn’t the 22nd amendment setting a limit of 2 presidential terms? Repealing it would give them more time to get it right!…
e julius drivingstorm 10.27.07 at 4:37 pm
Arnaud, I think it means 2 elected terms but a 10-year maximum. I think the Supreme Court could have allowed Clinton to remain in office until a viable recount was effected in Florida in 2001.
Next time around, when trumped up voter fraud charges are made in a couple of swing states, they will allow Bush to remain in office rather than see a democrat inaugurated on time.
airth10 10.27.07 at 4:58 pm
Arnaud,
Your are being counterintuitive.
Would you trust Bush with another four years? I don’t think he could ever get it right. There is to much ideology involved on his side, ideology that will continually get it wrong
bi 10.27.07 at 5:29 pm
“Next time around, when trumped up voter fraud charges are made in a couple of swing states, they will allow Bush to remain in office rather than see a democrat inaugurated on time.”
Hmm, if the Supreme Court’s able to drag out a recount for two whole years, that’ll be a real eye-opener.
Anderson 10.27.07 at 5:42 pm
The stupidity goes to so many levels. How did Johnson think the scam wouldn’t be revealed? What did Johnson think the aftermath would be – better or worse than if no scam had been performed at all?
And these morons are the ones we’re trusting to save us from disasters? They *are* the disaster.
Oregonian37 10.27.07 at 7:08 pm
Umm..no…faking a news conference and assuming we are all stupid doesn’t undermine your credibility in the least…right?
WinSmith 10.28.07 at 4:24 am
How is this different from a Fox News reporter in the west wing?
greg 10.28.07 at 12:12 pm
“I hope readers understand we’re working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it.”
Why would it undermine it?
NabaFEMA 10.28.07 at 1:57 pm
But did the conference succeed in making the point that FEMA was doing everything it could to respond to the crisis?
Thank you for the question. I think today’s events show there is no doubt FEMA remains firmly focused on the core mission that it has been charged with by this administration.
Nell 10.29.07 at 11:26 am
Oh, yeah. Accountability and response has improved so much since Katrina that Mr. Philbin is leaving FEMA… wait for it … to run the public information office at the National Intelligence Directorate!!
I am not making that up.
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