The “Break it Down” Blog

Todd Swarthout just sent in a… story… that is awesome cripplingly stupid.

Pat Philbin, pictured above, is the man that oversaw public affairs at FEMA. He apparently decided last week to announce a press conference covering FEMA with regards to California’s disaster.

So far so good…

The only sticking points were that the press conference was:

• Announced 15mins before it was given
• No press could make it physically to the conference, so a dial-in listen-only phone line was given
• The few “press” that were there that asked questions, later turned out to be FEMA personel that were asking scripted questions.

Unfortunately for our friend Pat here, he was scheduled to get promoted to director of public affairs for National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell Monday (today), but in light of the decision has been let go.

Given that FEMA has actually had a good response to CA, I’m amazed that Pat decided it was best to hamstring the entire effort with a bullshit press conference because he figured he was as good as gone. There is karma for you.

My favorite quote in the story is from FEMA director Paulison:

“He just feels sick about it,” Paulison said. “He feels his credibility has been hurt.”

hmm… he feels his credibility has been hurt? So it seems there is still some fuzziness here for him. I hope Pat eventually gets this all squared away and someone clarifies for him that he’s a douche bag.