At FEMA Your IQ Must Be Below This Line

Schieffer: Just Fire The People Responsible For The Disaster Agency's Fake News Conference

(CBS)  Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

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The last time I was at Disney World, they had sticks of a certain height stuck in the ground with signs that said something like: "You must be this tall to ride this ride."

FEMA, the disaster relief agency, must use a variation of that to hire its public relations staff.

Somewhere on their employment application form there must be a clause that says "Your IQ must be below a certain level to work here."

How else to explain FEMA's action last week when it staged a phony news conference where its employees posed as reporters and threw softball questions to agency leaders so they could tell us what a good job they were doing at the California fires?

Mind you, this is the same FEMA once headed by Michael Brown - he of "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" fame - that fell on its face during Katrina. While New Orleans drowned, Brownie's PR people busied themselves by E-mailing Brownie to roll up his sleeves before TV interviews so it would look like he was working hard.

Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said he found the phony news conference offensive, and, since it is an emergency relief outfit, I have some emergency suggestions for him.

Fire these people and the people who hired them and then explain to the new people that the best way for a disaster relief agency to get good publicity is to do a good job helping disaster victims.

As part of a massive new PR campaign you might even consider taking the PR staff from behind their desks and sending them to deliver food and water to the fire victims.

Now that would make a great story.

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E-mail Face the Nation.

[greybeardvet]

Good comments by Bob Schieffer. Very welcome coming from a main-stream commentator not known for radical positions. Certainly, he is no Bill Moyers, and he should have more accurately placed the blame on Bush and Chertoff rather than the lowly jackoffs that did the interview. Still, it is a welcome development for CBS to be showing a bit of honest anger over something that the criminals in the Administration have done.

[ramos937]

Let''s quit trashing FEMA. This sordid affair was staged by the Director of PA who not only is not employed at FEMA anymore but lost the lucrative job he was going to as a result of this affair. The employees participating were all handed letters of reprimand which go into their personnel jackets. Everybody has a right to be stupid now and then.

[godseyesore-2009]

lajes62, are you a total idiot?
You definitely need to get out of your cave for a just a little while each day.
Schieffer is one of the most rational comentators in the media.

[emh1701]

"I think its time to reconstruct this organization."

Forget the organization, reconstruct America instead.

[inventagod]

FEMA is now the US-based muscle for Bu$h.
The group has degenerated from a civilian service organization to a Pentagon wing of the military. They only serve the president''s wishes.
Recently, they awarded Halliburton''s KBR nearly $400 million to build detention camps here in the USA - WHY?

[jetranger7]

Most of them have their Jobs , not for what they know, but Who they know, maybe from College or else where, the buddy system, or they were a part of a club or soriety, looked good on the Resume/Application anyway ! Ohh he''s OK He''s part of the Club from college hire him, just a bunch of Over-Educated Rich Party Kids riding on the Coat Tails of the BUSH Adminstration ! FIRE them all, Next up, the GAO, and the State Department !!

Bob Scheiffer (sp) is a pompous, bias, half-wit who should do his job and read the news, not try to make news. After getting rid of Rather, I was surprised that scheiffer is still there giving his opinion that only uneducated people or fools believe.

[bareemperor]

This is not the first time the Bu$h administration has been caught manipulating the press. It won''t be the last time either.

There is no real outrage, though, so they really got away with it. One of these days FEMA will grow up and become a real emergency services organization.... I hope.

[andor3]

scoliosuxs said: "Some government jobs require intelligence and common sense."

Yes there are some very good people in public service and governement jobs. I have worked with many. But sadly the numbers are dwindling. It used to be that an ambitious and talented person could do public service and gain experience in government jobs and having worked for an agency was a plus even though the pay might be a little lower. Unfortunately now government agencies have a bad rep, so for example a few years as a manager for FEMA doesn''t help your career now like it used to. And that attitude is hurting FEMA and agencies when they try to hire people: it is a vicious cycle.

[scoliosuxs]

Please don''t classify all gov''t employees as lazy and incompetent. I worked for the state of La for the federal disability program and no one in our office was lazy or incompetent. The job would not allow you to be either. If you couldn''t hack it you were asked to leave. Some gov''t jobs require intelligence and common sense. Not all public jobs can be done by the private sector, such as disability, too many chances for bias or wrong doing without proper oversight.

[bbuc]

Of course FEMA employees have low IQ''s. They had to be Bush supporters to get their jobs.

[roger_inkart]

Your tax dollars at work...

[random_radar]

I''m from the government, and I''m here pretending to help.

[revwilliam]

"Fire these people and the people who hired them.."

...and impeach The Chimp and Dr Evil.

[carrdona]

I''m a "government PR person," working for the Army. I%u2019m concerned the profession in government has become too full of people who believe their job is to "market" the agency through what they call, "strategic communications." Problem is, few government PR people understand what that term means. They think it means "marketing," and constantly work on gimmicky events they believe will present their agency in good light. "The public doesn''t understand what we do or how we do it," they lament. "We''re doing good stuff %u2026 we''ve got to figure out how to get our good news out there ..." Sadly, they just don''t know how to get past the fact that their story is already out there based on what they do, not what they say.

[imnho]

It appears that the adminstration is so use to playing loose with the truth that no lie is to big for them to try. They lied there way into a major war in Iraq and now it is convient to lie concerning FEMA. At some point there lies will turn around and bite them like an angry lion. The problem is that they may lie us into another war. Iran is not going to be a cake walk. The problem is since the necons don''t personally fight wars they don''t worry about the people who do fight wars. They are not the ones who will be getting hurt and dying.

[tom.becker]

From an inside source who is upper management at the DOE, it is basically impossible for a government employee to be terminated. They typically relocate them or sometimes promote them to get them out of their current situation.

I''m in the private sector. We don''t have these perks.

[tom.becker]

From an inside source who is upper management at the DOE, it is basically impossible for a government employee to be terminated. They typically relocate them or sometimes promote them to get them out of their current situation.

I''m in the private sector. We don''t have these perks.

[tom.becker]

From an inside source who is upper management at the DOE, it is basically impossible for a government employee to be terminated. They typically relocate them or sometimes promote them to get them out of their current situation.

I''m in the private sector. We don''t have these perks.

[creeper00]

I won''t hold my breath waiting for someone to be sacked over this debacle.

If you can out a CIA agent without paying any price, staging a phony presser is small potatoes.