It is amazing what becomes important to Americans and why.

Thousands of people, many of them children, wash up on our shores every year looking to find a better life.

Americans will clamor for their exile out of rote habit or with great passion depending on the day they are asked for their opinion.

Little Elian Gonzalez has become a cause de celeb.

Suddenly, he is a symbol of the lengths people will go for freedom.

If he had come ashore a day earlier or later and not on Thanksgiving, no one would know his name. Right now, he would be back in Havana mourning his mother’s death with a father who loves him.

Unfortunately for Elian, he landed squarely in the middle of a political firestorm.

Up is down. Black is white. Congressmen from New Hampshire are spouting off buzz phrases in Spanish.

Even Castro has to act like he cares what happens to this boy. No one is safe from the sinister symbolism.

Depending on whom you ask, the United States is either the Great Protector of Liberty or the Great Capitalist Child-Snatcher.

When it comes to custody cases, the law is clear.

Elian had a close relationship with his father, and no one should try to tear that asunder for temporary, political gain.

Vice President Al Gore jumped on the popular bandwagon to undermine the authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Service by suggesting the agency did not have the expertise to make this decision.

Sorry, Al, but when it comes to deciding who comes and goes, the hard-working folks at the INS wrote the book.

All they do day in, day out is make decisions about who can and who cannot come into the country.

Try jumping on a bandwagon that doesn’t have wheels made of intangible nonsense.

The INS was absolutely correct to determine that Elian should be reunited with his father as soon as possible. They were following the law. For once, what is legal and what is just coincide.

As difficult as Elian’s journey to the United States may have been, it was undertaken by his mother and stepfather. His fate was determined by others.

They acted in their own best interests without considering the wishes of Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the boy’s father.

And now, different factions in the United States are trying to do the same thing.