Like when Rome is burning, for instance… or when New Orleans is flooding.

The after-action reports on Hurricane Katrina are still quite preliminary, but already we’re getting a better view of exactly what did and did not happen in the days leading up to landfall. Worse, it seems as though the after-landfall response might have at times taken a backburner to political theater.

Even worse — a new batch of e-mails released by a congressional panel seems to suggest that the Lousiana Governor’s office was a little too preoccupied with perception, and not spending enough time on the actual reality.

In one e-mail, Blanco’s assistant chief of staff, Johnny Anderson, complained to her executive counsel and other staff members on Sept. 2 about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s evacuation of thousands of Louisianans to other states.

“I think that we should make every effort to keep as many of our evacuees in state as possible,” Anderson wrote.

“It is not acceptable to allow FEMA to send more people out of state than in state. That will come back to haunt us,” he said. “You send that many black folks out of state, we will have a perception problem. Why can’t we make every effort to send folk to the northern part of the state. Word is already (sic) that we are only sending blacks out of this state. We are make (sic) a strategic error. FEMA will not have to answer the people, we will.”

It seems as though the new release was meant to level things out, as the committee didn’t want to create a perception that then-FEMA director Mike Brown was the only suit thinking about suits.

Today’s release of e-mails seemed to signal a new line of criticism — one aimed at creating parity among Brown and Blanco, equally preoccupied with their images and equally detached from the suffering unfolding around them.

“Please put KBB in casual clothes, a baseball cap, etc. she needs to visit a shelter in prime time and talk tough, but hug on some folks and be sensitive,” consultant Liz Mangham, of the Southern Strategy Group of Louisiana, messaged Blanco’s press office five days after the storm hit.

“She looks tired, but too comfy in her suit,” Mangham advised. “Please put the secretaries in caps and jeans….I don’t care if they are in the field or not … they should look like they are.”

Of course, there are claims by both Blanco’s and Brown’s camps that these selective releases of communications are distorting the real picture.

I can certainly understand the importance of projecting an image of calm and of unity. You want the public to have confidence in what you are doing, or else you’re allowing an unnatural panic to hinder the effort. But this is just the sort of event that can make the public at large distrust the motives of a PR practitioner. Wrapping truth in easily digestible bites is an art, and a necessary one — as long as you aren’t substituting the wrapper for the truth.

So much of this could have been mitigated with a simple e-mail response that said “I’m a little busy to worry about clothing right now…” Anything that would have indicated a semblance of the sort of priorities the people would expect.

For future reference: Keep PR in the proper perspective… and remember that the internet leaves a wonderful paper trail.