The Federal Emergency Management Agency, that gutted governmental agency filled with political hacks who observed the devastation of Katrina secondhand through a television screen, was supposed to have been reorganized, retooled and ready for action should disaster strike again.
The California wildfires have shown just how far FEMA has come in that quest. Unfortunately for FEMA (and for most agencies run by hand-picked Bush appointees) progress isn’t measured by the ability to get the job done. It’s measured by how well you can make people believe you’re doing a heckuva job.
Last Friday, the deputy administrator of FEMA, Harvey E. Johnson, decided to hold a press conference to let anxious Americans know just how well the agency was handling the latest crisis.
“Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” one reporter asked.
“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Johnson replied, “a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.”
In fact, all of Johnson’s answers came out very smoothly and very efficiently. It was almost as if he knew what the question was before the reporter had uttered a word.
He lucked out too, because none of the reporters held his feet to the fire over grounded airplane tankers. Nor did they ask any tough questions about formaldehyde-laced FEMA trailers used to house evacuees (40 of 44 trailers tested by the EPA contained “elevated levels” of formaldehyde).
The press conference, like the emergency effort, was being conducted without a hitch.
But Johnson’s polished answers lost a little luster once people discovered the reporters posing the questions were not really reporters at all, but employees of FEMA. Johnson’s grace under such withering friendly fire was all a charade.
But should we really be surprised. It’s not as if this behavior is something new. We’re talking about a White House that “eviscerated” (according to a Center for Disease Control spokesperson) a CDC report on the potential health effects that will result from global warming, chopping out 10 pages of the 14-page report.
We’re talking about a White House that bribed reporters to write favorable columns on legislation for No Child Left Behind and Bush’s prescription drug plan.
And how many times do we have to listen to a Bush sock puppet imply a link between 9/11 and Iraq (wait a second, now it’s Iran, right?).
The Bush administration and its supporters have made it a habit to seek out alternate reality news programming. Don’t believe me? Check out the Republican Party’s 24-hour campaign commercial, FOX news, which by the way ran the FEMA news conference live.

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