Talk about misplaced priorities.
Unless you live on Mars, you know by now that Paris Hilton (who I'm still trying to figure out why she's always in the news) has been locked up for 45 days, turning the act of going to jail into some kind of infotainment freak show.
But while the media have been wall-to-wall Paris, they haven't said much at all about the White House's recent changes in a plan of who would take over federal departments in the event of a sneak attack on the federal government.
On May 9, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20. The directive orders federal executive agencies to draw up plans for their operation after a surprise attack. But Bush made the White House, not the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for running a "shadow" government in the event of such an attack.
This is the first time since the Reagan administration that this job was taken from an agency and given to the White House. It had been the responsibility of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and later, the Department of Homeland Security.
So if Washington faces a "dirty bomb" or a chemical or biological attack that wipes out federal agencies, say hello to Bush's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, Frances Fragos Townsend. While working with National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, she'll be responsible for keeping those agencies running.
Some critics of this directive have likened it to a power grab by Bush in the waning days of his presidential tenure, and others have said it was more of a formal move to prepare for an attack they hope will never come. But no matter which side you're on, you deserve to know about who's going to run the country in the event of a terrorist attack far more than you need to know about the jailing of an overexposed, famous-for-being-famous slacker. Or so you would think.
How much attention has this received? I did a Nexis search today for all stories containing "National Security Presidential Directive" since May 9, and found all of 14 articles. Six of those mentions were in newspapers -- The Washington Post, the Honolulu Advertiser, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Star Tribune (Minneapolis), the Boston Globe and a letter in the Sacramento Bee. The rest were blog posts or research materials.
By comparison, a search for the phrases "Paris Hilton" and "jail" over the same period returned 992 results.
Forgive me if I don't feel the least bit of sadness or remorse that Paris Hilton got locked up. Can we keep our country and freedoms from suffering the same fate? Or is it already too late?
