FEMA to Firefighters: Pass Out Flyers

Under the leadership of Michael Brown, FEMA has assigned a contingent of firefighers from around the country to PR duty:

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

I guess conveying a "positive image of disaster operations" remains more important than rescuing those still in danger and relieving the physically and psychologically worn out fire crews in New Orleans.

Yet another reason to fire Brown now. Mr. President, what are you waiting for?