The Daily Twitter ~ Conservative Reaction to California Wildfires

Bonehead of the Day Award to Glenn Beck

~ Outstrips his nearest competitors Limbaugh, O'Reilly & Coulter ~

No, kittens, your Demon does not think large swaths of the California countryside burning out of control is funny, really ~ just the (by now predictable) unhinged & out of touch conservative reaction to it.

Seems Beck had a stellar moment in hate-spew radio when he confused the uber-conservative San Diego county with liberals & other wastrels deserving of a natural disaster.

In case you missed it, here it is, courtesy of that scourge of America-loving right-thinkers everywhere, Media Matters: " A handful of people who hate America are losing their homes today..." http://mediamatters.org/items/200710220003

In the meantime, the infamous Bush-based FEMA was rolling out another instance of its by-now-familiar reaction to another unthinkable natural disaster--a PR campaign & media-manipulation gambit replete with fake news & fake reporters ~ who turned out to be FEMA staffers, at least according to the WaPo:

"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.

[FEMA official] "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.

"FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he'd allow just 'two more questions.' Later, he called for a 'last question.'

"'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. [Emphasis mine.]

"Asked about this, Widomski said: 'We had been getting mobbed with phone calls from reporters, and this was thrown together at the last minute.'

Read on: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502488.html

Oh well ~ we only want Happy News, after all. And Bushco knows we want our government to deliver it to us, even if it means resorting to empty PR stunts, or something we would have expected from the old Soviet Politburo or Communist China (before they were our "friends.")