Change At The White House
                          By NEAL KNOX

     WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 3) -- They don't call him "Slick
Willie" for nothing.  The nickname isn't just derogatory; it's
descriptive.

     This city's eyes bulged and jaws dropped when President Bill
Clinton appointed David Gergen as his communications director.
He gave a key policy-making and policy-implementing role to a guy
who had done the same sort of thing for the last three Republican
Presidents.

     Gergen (who is moderately anti-gun but not a flag-waver) is
now Counselor to the President -- which is the same title given
by President Ronald Reagan to his friend and powerful confidant
Ed Meese.

     Bringing Gergen into the White House -- and into an
exclusive five-person circle composed of Bill Clinton, Hillary
Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Chief of Staff Mack McLarty
-- is the equivalent of President Reagan bringing President
Carter's communications director Jodie Powell into the Reagan,
Nancy, Meese inner circle.

     It's a tossup as to whether Liberal Democrats or
Conservative Republicans are more upset -- but the conservatives
aren't surprised; Gergen was never a Reaganite.

     This isn't just another game of Washington musical chairs;
and it is important to gun owners -- mainly because bringing a
nominal Republican into the inner circle indicates how far
Clinton will go to preserve his Presidency.

     (Not only does the appointment tell us a great deal about
Clinton, it also tells us a lot about Gergen -- the ultimate
Washington insider, and member, naturally, of the elitist Council
on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission.)

     The Clinton Administration is in serious trouble, thanks to
his largest-ever tax increase and coming even-more-expensive
socialized medicine plan, radical policies (like homosexuals in
the military and women in combat) and arrogant screwups like
getting a $200 haircut on Air Force One while common people
circled two closed runways at LAX.

     Whether Gergen will actually help solve the President's
problems is less important than the signal the appointment sends:
that the "Pragmatic New Democrat" is back.  That's the policy
image that Clinton rode into the White House, before taking a
sharp turn to the Left.

     I think what Gergen's appointment means is that there has
been a palace coup, in which Clinton has wrested his Presidency
away from Hillary.

     That's not necessarily going to help gun owners, for as long
as Hillary and her wild-eyed friends were in control they were
pushing for the most extreme left positions -- making it likely
that we were going to see equally radical "gun control"
proposals.

     Worse is better.

     It's no secret that it's a lot easier to beat a radical ban-
'em-all bill than something which the public -- and Congress --
perceives as moderate and reasonable, like a simple waiting
period (which the "Brady Bill" isn't).

     Clinton's apparent turn to the political center may mean
that we will see nothing more radical than what he has
specifically endorsed: the "Brady Bill" (in some version), a
military-style firearm ban (in some version), and a ban on
magazines of over about 15 rounds.

     There is also the possibility that he will only do what he
said he would do during his State of the Union speech, when he
told Congress:  "You pass the 'Brady Bill' and I'll sign it."

     Agreeing to sign a bill is a long way from going all-out to
push it through Congress, arm-twisting and vote-trading as he and
the White House lobbyists did to get the tax bill through the
House.

     "Gun Control" isn't nearly as important to Bill Clinton as
it is to Hillary and her friends; he's far more interested in
making a historical record as a great President.  Such an
ambition can be fulfilled only by big changes in big programs,
not by incremental changes in the gun laws.

     So how does Gergen's appointment -- and the new directions
it signals -- affect us gun owners?  It's much too early to tell.
But it's sure going to affect us.

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(c) 1993 by Neal Knox and Associates.  All Rights Reserved.