FEMA workers posed as reporters
USA Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.
The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.
The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.
"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from an agency employee.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.
"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting 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," Perino said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they — I'm sure — will not do it again."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.
The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.
The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.
"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from an agency employee.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.
"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting 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," Perino said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they — I'm sure — will not do it again."
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1 Comments:
I've heard that you cannot believe everything that you read on the Internet ... so this article entitled "Seven Questions: John Bolton Explains the World" must be read with some degree of skepticism. After all, John Bolton was backed quite emphatically by Senator Norm Coleman for Ambassador to the United Nations (despite deep concerns by three fellow Republican Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee.)
Obviously when someone is being interviewed, you need to question the bias of the interviewer .... so who's the interviewer ... well, if I am reading it correctly ... John Bolton is credited with writing the article hence, John Bolton is interviewing John Bolton ... heck, this takes a FEMA Press Conference to a new level.
But most alarming is the Neo-Con spiel that he is sprouting ... of course there is the North Korea policy bashing (since Bush didn't follow his advise) ... but the focal point goes to another member of the Axis of Evil ... in which he comments "I'm afraid now we're past the point where even strong Security Council sanctions could dissuade Iran from continuing to follow the strategic decision to acquire nuclear weapons. What that means unfortunately is that our options may be down to regime change or the use of force against the nuclear program. "
Thanks Norm for that strong endorsement of Bolton ... without it, he may have continued in the State Department causing havoc instead of being forced out when the Dems took control of the Senate last January.
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