Sadly It's Deja Vu All Over Again

Last Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued an apology for having its own employees pose as reporters during a fake news conference from three days prior regarding the wildfires in California. FEMA scheduled the briefing with approximately fifteen minutes notice. The news organizations were also provided with a telephone number in order to listen to the news conference but could not ask questions. The following is an excerpt from that phony news conference:

QUESTION: "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?"
ANSWER: "I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far. This is a FEMA and a federal government that's leaning forward, not waiting to react. And you have to be pretty pleased to see that."

QUESTION: "What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?"
ANSWER: "I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership, none of which were present in Katrina. So I think, as a nation, people should sit up and take notice that you have the worst wildfire season in history in California and look at how well the state and local governments are performing, look at how well we're working together between state and federal partners."

Not surprisingly, the "questions" were directed at Harvey Johnson, the Deputy Administrator and COO for FEMA. In the agency's apology, Johnson states that "the real story...should not be lost because of how we tried to meet the needs of the media in distributing facts". Facts? How can you even use that particular word when your whole news conference was a sham? And what did the White House have to say about this? Press Secretary Dana Perino (who, by the way, is easily competing with Mr. Bush for the award for the Worst Public Speaker in the World) stated that "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House or that we — we certainly don’t condone it. We didn’t know about it beforehand. FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to try to get out a lot of information to reporters who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California. It’s not something I would have condoned. And they, I’m sure, will not do it again". When asked by a reporter as to who was responsible for the fake interview, Perino declared that "FEMA is responsible. And they have accepted that responsibility and they issued an apology today". Boy, how quickly things change in just two years. Following Hurricane Katrina, a White House reporter asked former Press Secretary Scott McClellan who was responsible for the disastrous relief efforts conducted by FEMA. McClellan's simply answered: "The President".