SmallGovTimes.com

By: SGT News | Published on 11/01/07    

David Paulison, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said this week that the admittedly-fake news conference last week was “regrettable”, but the incident will not affect the agency's ability to assist the fire recovery effort in California.

The controversy is over a news conference that FEMA held last week that talked about their role in helping victims of the California wildfires, which turned out to be phony and staged. FEMA's own employees were instructed to attend the news conference and ask their own questions at FEMA's deputy director, Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson.

The news conference was announced just 15 minutes before it began. Reporters who couldn't attend in person were invited to join via telephone, where they were not allowed to ask questions.

Questions from FEMA officials like “Are you happy with FEMA's response?” littered the so-called news conference, which gave the deputy director the opportunity to provide gleeful and positive answers in response.

The government immediately criticized the ploy by FEMA and this week promised to interrogate Vice Adm. Johnson about the encounter and to consider appropriate punishment. One FEMA official, John Philbin, has already lost his job.

“I think this is one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," chirped FEMA director Michael Chertoff.

FEMA has been well-known recently for botching the recovery effort after the powerful Hurricane Katrina rolled through Louisiana and surrounding areas, flooding entire cities, destroying homes and displacing thousands of people.

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