TRUTH UNDER FIRE
So in the end, the "Million Mom March" turned out to be little more than a super-hyped Democratic Party campaign rally. 

Gee, what a surprise. 

* Bill and Hillary Clinton hosted the organizers at the White House; 

* Mrs. Clinton and Tipper Gore campaigned personally among the obviously sympathetic crowd; and, 

* Speakers repeatedly praised both the president
and the vice president and castigated the GOP. 

Doesn't sound very non-partisan to us. 

But then, from the beginning, everything about the event has been misrepresented by its organizers, with the help of a gullible and sympathetic media. 

"Head Mom" Donna Dees-Thomases piously proclaimed she'd "never been politically active." 

Then it turned out that not only is she the sister-in-law of Susan Thomases, Hillary Clinton's close political adviser, but she also worked as an assistant press secretary to two Democratic senators from 1979 to 1983. 

Some rookie. 

As for a collection of "moms" banding together against the all-powerful "gun lobby," news coverage somehow failed to mention the rally's significant backers: Corporate sponsors included Dannon Yogurt, PAX TV, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Media and three major dot-coms. 

Again, no surprise. 

The rally's message is contradicted by the fact that, despite the intense media coverage of tragedies like Columbine and Jonesboro, gun violence in America is down significantly in recent years. And this is so despite the fact that, under Clinton and Gore, prosecutions of gun-law offenders are virtually non-existent. 

Of the more than 400,000 felons and others successfully barred from buying guns under the Brady Bill, fewer than 1,000 have been prosecuted for lying on their applications. 

And of the 6,000 youths caught trying to sneak guns into schools since 1996, only 17 (!) have been prosecuted. Federal gun-law prosecutions are down 25 percent under Clinton-Gore.  

The "Million Mom March" was, fundamentally, an exercise in the same dishonesty that has long surrounded the gun-control debate. 

And while gun proponents too often interpret the Second Amendment as banning any sort of controls, it remains that the Constitution - albeit ambiguous - protects the right of Americans to own firearms as a means of self-protection. 

The bottom line, however, is that disingenuously arguing for ever-tougher laws while refusing to enforce those already on the books is hypocrisy, pure and simple. 

Then again, this is the Clinton administration we're talking about.