A Word on the Phony FEMA News Conference

I posted a couple of stories a few days ago on the phony FEMA press conference on the California wildfires (here and here). What was most surprising about the story was that it was uncovered so quickly, and that FEMA and the Bush Administration fessed up about it. But before you could get too excited about the administration's new honesty, they tried to portray it as an anomaly.

Anyone who's followed the news over the last six years, and has retained some of it would know that "anomaly" would be pretty far from the truth. We had reporters who were paid to throw in a little government propaganda (with no acknowledgement). We had phony video news releases, inserted into news programs (also with no acknowledgement). We had paid propaganda in Iraq. And of course, we had phony newsman Jeff Gannon in the press room. (Side note: someone alleging to be Gannon has left me a comment today. Possibly more to come on that little nugget.)
All of this falls right into line with a quote I've heard from time to time, and unfortunately the "high level official" has not--to my knowledge--been identified.

. . .an interesting observation that an unnamed "senior advisor" to President Bush made to a New York Times Magazine reporter last fall:

The aide said that guys like me [i.e., reporters and commentators] were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."[6] Source: NYBooks