From a WaPo article titled FEMA Official Apologizes for Staged Briefing With Fake Reporters:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's No. 2 official apologized yesterday for leading a staged news conference Tuesday in which FEMA employees posed as reporters while real reporters listened on a telephone conference line and were barred from asking questions...
In the briefing, parts of which were televised live by cable news channels, Johnson stood behind a lectern, called on questioners who did not disclose that they were FEMA employees, and gave replies emphasizing that his agency's response to this week's California wildfires was far better than its response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
It's typical of the Bush administration's approach to governance, from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina. Instead of having competent people do their jobs and solve problems, they hire incompetent hacks whose only skills are spinning their failures.
