Herring Anyone?

Over the past couple of months, a great deal of discussion was heard about the war on Christmas. Most of that diatribe came from Faux News and Bill O'Lielly in particular.

I looked long and hard for evidence of this so-called war from avenues outside the Faux News sound machine.  Not so surprisingly, I didn't find a one.  Oh, I found a lot of "a friend of a friend" stuff that typically falls under the category urban legend, but nothing of any merit.

I began to ask myself, "Why all the fuss over a non-issue?"  Sure, I can see the ultra-religious right trying to make it into a big hoopla to raise their status at this time of year.  But why would O'Lielly allow himself to be lead like a bull by the nose to this trifle?

Then it came to me.  This whole thing was a red-herring.  A distraction from other important issues. 

There are many that I could talk about, but today I'm just going to mention one.  A very important one, in my eyes.

Christmas is a time of family.  A time when families get together and share their love and think of all the great times they had during the year.  If the year has been a sad one, it's a time for families to plan for a better future.

Many families devastated by Katrina didn't get to experience that this year.

I'm talking specifically about those families that still don't know where their children are.  Homes can be rebuilt, but missing children can tear a hole in a family's heart.  They don't know if the children are alive or dead.  If alive, they don't know if they are with people who are taking care of them.

As of December 23, 2005, 500 children were still classified as missing in Katrina's aftermath.  Sadly, the very organization that is supposed to be helping the victims of Katrina is prolonging their pain.

Why? The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will not share its evacuee database with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  FEMA is blaming privacy laws for its lack of co-operation.

The FBI, which is also trying to resolve these cases, has also had trouble getting information from FEMA. 

It's shameful.

One of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report was for government-wide information sharing.  On December 5, 2005 the Commission came out with a report card on how all areas of the government have been doing meeting their recommendations.  The grade for government-wide information sharing?  D.

Some of you might be saying, "Well, the FBI is part of the government so, yeah FEMA should share information with them but the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children isn't.  FEMA was right to withhold information from them. "

You're right and you're wrong.  A look at the mandate and mission for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children shows that it is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.  Read a little further, though, and you see that it has congressional mandates.  One of those mandates is to

Provides technical assistance to individuals and law-enforcement agencies in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases involving missing and exploited children.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children can't follow a government mandate if FEMA won't share information.

Not much attention has been given to the 9/11 Commission's Report Card by Faux News.  Faux News tended to deride the report with the fact that we haven't been hit by terrorist inside the United States.  They conveniently forgot that the handling of the aftermath's of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma would have also been improved by better efforts to meet the Commission's recommendations.

So has the so-called war on Christmas been a red-herring?  Ask yourself, what other issues have we heard little about because of this "war"?  What else has our attention be diverted from?  How are things going in the areas of civil rights, economic issues, education, immigration, and the budget to name a few?  Has enough attention been given to these areas?  Or has Faux News and O'Lielly's red herring distracted everyone just like a cat distracted by a waving light?

Crossposted on Can't Keep Quiet!