Fresh whiskey! And horses for my men!

You might remember the "fake" news conference held by FEMA over the California wildfires. Well, after being seriously outed by... just about everybody, you can imagine there was going to be at least one rolling head brought on by a swinging axe.

On Friday, FEMA Director of External Affairs, John "Pat" Philbin, apologized.

"It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly . . . I should have stopped it," said John P. "Pat" Philbin, FEMA's director of external affairs. "I hope readers understand we're working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it."

White House press secretary Dana Perino said yesterday that "it is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House. We certainly don't condone it. We didn't know about it beforehand. . . . They, I'm sure, will not do it again."

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke called the staged briefing "totally unacceptable," adding, "While it is an isolated incident, that does not make it any more tolerable." He said reprimands are "very probable." FEMA is part of DHS.

At which point one could expect that Philbin would be the one receiving one of those "probable" reprimands. In fact, he left his office for the last time right after making his apology.

Not so fast. Remember, this is the Bush administration. "Reprimands" have a different meaning in the World of Bush.

Philbin's last scheduled day at FEMA was Thursday. He has been named as the new head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI spokeswoman Vanee Vines said.

You cannot make this shit up.