Today’s Lame Snark award goes to Al Kamen of the Washington Post. He righteously seized on an email sent out by DHS highlighting an Associated Press story in which citizens praised FEMA for its effective response to the floods in the Midwest.
The headline of the original story that ran in the Associated Press was as follows: “Flood victims: FEMA really doing heckuva job this time.” DHS sent the article to its email list, and appeared to be a good sport about it by highlighting the notorious “You’re doing a heckuva job” comment made by President Bush during Katrina.
Kamen actually takes up ink in the Post to report that the email was “swimming in irony.”
FEMA must be feeling really good about its performance during the recent floods in the Midwest. Otherwise, how to explain the Department of Homeland Security’s move Monday touting this Associated Press headline:
“Flood Victims Say FEMA Is Doing a Heckuva Job.”
Maybe they’ve forgotten the last time FEMA did so well? Or maybe FEMA always does a heckuva job, with or without Brownie.
Does Kamen really think he’s the only genius who made the connection to Katrina? Or does he not understand the definition of “irony” (or perhaps “swimming”)? The AP headline wasn’t subtle. It’s not like the folks at DHS didn’t make the connection?
Rather than giving the beleagured folks at DHS a little credit for (a) doing a good job in response to the latest disaster and (b) having a reasonable sense of humility and humor for playing along with the heckuva ribbing, Kamen plays the email straight. His point is unclear. He’s either chiding the folks at DHS for either being so dumb as to not get the joke, or he’s asserting that no matter what lessons have been learned or how good of a job they ever do again in the future, they will never be given a pat on the back.
Either way, the irony-laden self righteousness of the Post’s DC gossip columnist wins him today’s Snark award.
