FEMA Spokesman Fired for Fake News Conference About Fires in California

This is a bit of a late post - but the story is that FEMA, in an effort to try to show they are doing better with the media (and their response to disasters), set up a fake news conference last week complete with fake reporters (FEMA employees posing as members of the press) and fake, easy, soft questions so that Harvey Johnson, the deputy administrator for FEMA could answer as many questions as possible by praising FEMA's response to the fires.

Not surprisingly, most of the press conference was shown on Fox News.

To read up on the whole back story, check out this article by Al Kamen of the Washington Post.

However, the White House actually did something right - at least semi-right. As of today, Pat Philbin, the FEMA external affairs director will not be promoted to director of public affairs as originally scheduled. However, it is the feeling of this website that anything short of being immediately fired is inadequate. Michael Chertoff himself said "I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've ever seen since I've been in government."

If Chertoff thinks that, you know it must have been Katrina.

Bad... I meant "Bad." You know it must have been bad. I don't know how I wrote Katrina.