FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.
Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices.
They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News (see the Fox News video of the news conference carried on the Think Progress Web site), MSNBC and other outlets.
Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.
He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.
[....]
"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" a reporter asked. Another asked about "lessons learned from Katrina."
"I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far," Johnson said, hailing "a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team."
"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership," Johnson said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.
Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.
You can watch the YouTube video of the Fake-FEMA press conference here:
I'm dumbfounded by this. The first question I would have to ask is why did FEMA even create this dog-and-pony show in the first place? Granted, the southern California wildfires were some of the worst I've seen, but I didn't see a reason yet for FEMA to perform a disastrous CYA like this fake press conference. I didn't see the news media showing appalling conditions of people living in shelters with no food or water, like we've seen in the first few days after Katrina. That is not to say that FEMA did an excellent job here in the Southern California wildfires, nor is it to say that FEMA screwed up here. What amazes me here is that FEMA would be so scared of screwing up the disaster response to the wildfires, that they would screw up in creating this fake news conference, rather than just doing the job that they were suppose to do in the first place--respond to the disaster! It is like the Bush administration's incessant desire to PR-manage everything has filtered down into FEMA here. Hence, FEMA announces a press conference with only 15 minutes advanced notice, and then staffs the press conference with their own employees playing reporters, when the real reporters were unable to show up. FEMA would have been better off just issuing a press release, and left it at that.
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