Wanting to show they’ve come a long way since New Orleans drowned, a press conference last week on the state of California’s fires was just what FEMA needed. However, they failed to invite the actual press, instead opting for FEMA staffers to pose as journalists and lob scripted questions. Two days later, after word of the sham got out, the play-acting continued when FEMA director of external affairs John “Pat” Philbin tendered his resignation. Now it seems he wasn’t so much taking the fall as moving on up. Philbin’s public departure went in concert with his having quietly been handed a more prestigious position heading public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Even while Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, pretending not to have known about the dupe in the first place, was vowing “appropriate disciplinary action” against his FEMA underlings, Philbin was getting set to unpack his box of tricks for the ODNI. Unfortunately, so little goes smoothly as an empire collapses. With FEMA’s former number two still stinking like the smouldering rubber of a Malibu sex dungeon, DNI Mike McConnell quickly pushed back Philby’s start date. According to a statement released on Monday, McConnell has confirmed that Philbin “is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs.”
by Scott Saxon
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