Bush Dictionary: Firefighters = Human Props

According to Daily Kos and the Salt Lake Tribune, on Sunday approximately 1,000 firefighters from around the country were flown out to Atlanta to attend a FEMA training session, many of them believing they would then be deployed to the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and the resulting floods. Instead they discovered that, after the training, they would be utilized in the most craven way possible: as community-relations officers for FEMA, to be shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a 800 FEMA phone number.

Even worse, the Salt Lake City Tribune disclosed:

But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

Is this FEMA's idea of a responsible use of highly trained emergency workers? Maybe New York would have been better served in the aftermath of 9/11 if FEMA had sent local and visiting firefighters around the city passing out fliers, instead of trying to save lives and unearth the dead. Or to mass around a man who seems to think that every disaster visited upon America is nothing more than a photo op.

The words "disgust" and "fury" don't begin to define what your erstwhile contributor is feeling right now.