FEMA Stages Phony Press Conference

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is still smarting all these years later from its ham-handed response to Hurricane Katrina, has done it again, staging a phony press conference on the So Cal fires, with staffers playing reporters fielding oddly friendly questions.

It's almost as if they started channeling the editors of The New Republic for a day.
It's a dumb move, by any standard. But did they really expect the press to take this one lying down? This is the media's domain. This is their bread and butter. This is what the crisis is really about. You screw up the press conference, rob the reporters of their rightful kill, and everyone might as well pack up and go home. Call off the emergency. What's the point?

Seriously, this is one of those moments when I have no sympathy for either side. No sympathy for the reporters who could be out in the field doing real journalism in So Cal. No sympathy for the agency which obviously took everyone else for idiots.

Meanwhile, the firemen and the volunteers and neighbors are in the trenches doing the real work. Isn't that how it always is?