If ever there was a case revealing the moral bankruptcy (or is it idiocy?) of liberalism, this is it. Of course, Clinton and Democratic leaders are calling for trigger locks on guns because they are planning to make this a major Democrat issue in this year's political campaigns. But that only makes the point stronger. So far not a single liberal has publicly dissented from the idea that gun control is the lesson to be drawn from this tragedy, let alone questioned the Democrats' sick exploitation of it for political ends.

Since the point is evidently not obvious to liberals, let me make it clear: Clinton might as well be calling a conference to develop a Voodoo spell to stop incidents like the Michigan tragedy as propose a new gun law. Why would a family of criminals, like the one actually responsible for the murder of Kayla Rolland observe a trigger-lock law if it was passed? The inhabitants of this crack house do not observe laws. They live to break laws. Child abuse is against the law. The little emotionally disturbed six-year-old who committed the murders was abused by his mother, his criminal father, his criminal uncle, and every adult that entered that crack house. That is already against law. Calling for a law to require parents who stash their kids in crack houses to put trigger locks on the stolen guns lying around is a sick joke. An even sicker joke would be to expect liberal Democrats or the liberal press to acknowledge this obvious fact.

Democrats' use of the inter-racial killing of a six-year-old to attack lawful gun owners and to beat up on the National Rifle Association is obscene. But better than that, it is an exercise in the very denial that provides liberalism with a reason to exist. The purpose of the cry for gun control is to allow liberals once again to close their eyes (and the nation's) to the serious moral problems in the inner city that create these tragedies, and to avoid holding the individuals responsible accountable for their crimes. We don't want to blame the "victims" do we?

If there are important lessons in the Michigan killing that need to be looked at, they are these: 1) Why were authorities unable to rescue the six-year-old murderer from his abusive environment, particularly since he had already shown himself to be a severely disturbed child? 2) Why were the felons in the crack house able to have guns at all, including a shotgun that was stolen? 3) Why did it take the press days to reveal that the shooter was black and his victim white?

This last question applies with a slight twist to the shooting that occurred days later in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, where a black racist named Ronald Taylor went on a rampage that took the lives of three people. After three days of investigation, the FBI finally charged the racist killer with a "hate crime." What took so long? Why did the media, which normally promote not only the idea of "hate crimes," but of hate-crime legislation, have to wait for the FBI to make this designation? Why is the White House silent about this racial outrage? Why has no black leader denounced this hate crime? Where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and their racially sensitive friends Bradley and Gore?

The answer is they're too busy calling for a new gun law to add to the 20,000 already on the books, which the Justice Department refuses to enforce. They're too busy making political hay out of a Confederate flag which may be offensive to some, but which hasn't killed anyone so far. Mr. Sharpton is too busy persuading black Americans that a New York jury, whose foreman was black, administered "no justice" in the trial of four police officers acquitted of all counts of criminal misconduct in the case of Amadou Diallo. If any individual in America could be reasonably held responsible for the distrust and hatred of whites manifested in the Wilkinsburg rampage it is Al Sharpton. But it will be a long time before any "liberal" in the media or in the Justice Department makes that point.

Instead, Justice Department officials in charge of racial issues are meeting with delegations of black leaders and deliberating among themselves as to whether they should invoke the civil-rights laws to re-try the acquitted New York policemen. Why is the Justice Department even looking at this case? Is there a shred of evidence that the acquitted policemen were racist? Is there the slightest indication that a jury, which included four African Americans, was prejudiced? How unbelievably insulting it is to those four jurors that the Justice Department (backed by the President) should even agree to consider this case.

What the Justice Department is, in effect, saying to those four African-American jurors is that "the United States Government thinks you may be too stupid, too brainwashed, too weak to stand up for your race. Even if you believed that four white cops murdered a black man in cold blood, you would not have the brains, the balls, or the racial self-esteem to say so." Think about that for a moment. This, my friends, is the only really rampant racism in America. It is what liberalism has come to.

That said, the decision of the FBI to declare the killing in Wilkinsburg a black-on-white hate crime is a courageous act. The decision of the press to report the race of the six-year-old killer in Michigan, however belated, is a step in the right direction. The honesty of the jury in the Amadou Diallo case is to be applauded.

Perhaps the tide has begun to turn. The next step would be for Jesse Jackson to step forward and publicly denounce the racism of blacks like Ronald Taylor. Perhaps a day will come when academic leftists will no longer teach that "blacks can't be racist." Perhaps Harvard will announce a policy dissociating itself from evil doctrines like this that are taught in its classrooms.

But don't hold your breath. This battle is a long way from over.