For those who might have missed it, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) held a press conference on Tuesday to discuss the California wildfires. The questions were easy and the concensus of the conference was that FEMA was doing just a wonderful job. That was because the media event was staged. There were no media representatives. The "reporters" were FEMA employees acting out a script designed to show FEMA in the best light possible--no mean feat considering how abyssmally the agency's track record was during Katrina.

Now that FEMA's deception has come to light, everyone is shocked! shcoked I tell you! that the agency would do such a thing.

The Bush administration mouthpieces all made the proper noises (and flat-out lied that the White House would never do such a thing). "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House," said Press Secretary Dana Perino, mentioning three times that it was an "error in judgment." "It's not something I would have condoned, and they, I'm sure, will not do it again."

The Department of Homeland Security, the neo-fascist umbrella agency created by the Bush administration to provide overall mismanagement for national security, and under whose purview FEMA falls, was also suitably outraged. "This is inexcusable and offensive, and stunts like this will not be tolerated or repeated," said spokeswoman Laura Keehner. "It was a lapse of judgment, and we find it offensive, and it won't happen again."

And how did FEMA react? With more lies and self-serving misdirection that only a population as stupid as Americans seem to be lately would fall for.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency apologized for the event, but protested that it was not intended to deceive. FEMA announced the news conference with 15 minutes' notice and provided an 800 number for reporters, but it was not set up to take questions. When no reporters showed up, FEMA provided stand-ins to ask questions and a video feed. Several channels broadcast parts of the event live.

"FEMA's goal is to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment," Johnson acknowledged in a statement. "Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received. We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straightforward and transparent."

Perino also said that the agency was just trying to provide information: "There were so many questions pouring in. It was just a bad way to handle it, and they know that."

They announced it with 15-minutes' notice and they were surprised no one showed up? How? Did they phone a classified ad in to the LA Times? I am not an administrator in a federal agency, but in my experience, when you set up an event and no one shows up, it is generally a good idea to examine the circumstances and procedures to find out why EVERYONE was a no-show and try again. I mean really: was it easier to round up a bunch of employees, feed them easy questions, stage-manage the entire event and then fail to tell anyone the "reporters" were actually employees asking prepared questions? And do all of that at the last minute? That sounds like a planned deception to me. It sounds like it was designed purposefully to fail to attract media.

However, I will note that such deceptive behavior by a federal agency is a natural consequence of six and a half years of an administration that stage-manages all of the president's appearances, denying access to critics and filling the audience with hand-picked supporters. I'm sure FEMA officials figured that was just the official policy and if the president could get away with blatant deception like that, he would laud them for doing likewise. And truthfully, if they had pulled it off, he probably would have.