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.