I’ve been writing about the Mayors’ Coalition Against Illegal Guns, and its efforts to stop guns obtained illegally from making their way into their cities. New Rochelle’s mayor is a member. So is Yonkers’.

Well today a gun shop owner in South Carolina, Larry Mickalis, was indicted on a charge of knowingly selling a firearm and ammunition to a felon.

The indictment is notable because Mickalis is one of 15 gun shop owners that New York City sued, claiming that they had sold firearms in violation of federal law.

Mickalis in turn sued Bloomberg for defamation and fraud.

Here’s Bloomberg comment today: “I want to commend federal officials in South Carolina who conducted the investigation that led to this indictment. Federal law prohibits the sale of guns to convicted felons, and those that break the law should be punished. Our complaint said that we found this dealer broke the law, now the federal government has reached the same conclusion.”

Today, in my column, I called David Shuster’s “pimped out” comment about Chelsea Clinton crude and offensive.

Refering to her role in her mother’s campaign—she was calling super delegates on her behalf—the MSNBC correspondent said: “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way.”

I’ve been getting emails and phone calls about Keith Olbermann’s use of the word when he accused President Bush of “pimping” General David Petraeus.

Olbermann made his comment in September when Petraus testified before Congress in support of the surge in Iraq and it was a topic on Fox & Friends Monday morning.

Here’s what he said: “In pimping General David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political.”

Do I find that language offensive? Yes, absolutely.

At the same time, Congress was entitled to debate the credibility of his report. How much was it influenced by the White House? Was a military man being improperly swayed by political considerations? You can come down on either side of the argument, but there is nothing improper about it.

As with most things involving the Clintons, even Chelsea, the whole discussion has become partisan to the extreme. Conservatives noted Olbermann’s use of the word, liberals found others.

Credit The Raw Story for compiling these examples:

Glenn Beck, the conservative host on CNN Headline News, described anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as a “pretty big prostitute,” then agreed she was a “tragedy pimp.”

Was Beck offensive? You bet.

Then there was Fox News’ Sean Hannity who seemed to agree with a guest’s assessment that Al Gore was “pimping” the environment for political gain. Here’s a transcript from Fox News:

SEAN HANNITY: And I think, in the short term, we ought to drill anywhere we can within the United States, lessen our dependency on foreign oil. In the long-term, work with Detroit, work with our engineers, build new technologies.
But global warming, as I see it, is nothing but right now hysteria, just like 30 years ago, the first Earth Day they were holding up signs that the next ice age is coming.

DREW JOHNSON, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research: You know, Al Gore is just pimping this issue for political gain.

ED BEGLEY, JR., actor and envirnomentalist: I don’t think it’s hysteria.

HANNITY: That’s right.

Was the exchange offensive? You bet.

PHOTO: Chelsea Clinton speaks to supporters at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio today during a campaign event for her mother. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

Two odd stories about Christ.

First a cosmetics line with a Jesus theme, according to Singapore’s Straits Times.

It is called “Looking Good for Jesus,” and has products such as “Virtuous vanilla” lip balm. But some shoppers complained and one leading retailer withdrew the line.

“Why would anyone use religious figures to promote vanity products? It’s very disrespectful and distasteful,” the article quoted 24-year-old accountant Grace Ong.

More “here”:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330439,00.html

Then there was this: Rio de Janiero’s statue of Christ the Redeemer, the largest of Christ in the world, was struck by lightening on Sunday.

PHOTO from the Daily Mail

John McCain tries to convince conservatives that he is one of them.

“My record in public office taken as a whole is the record of a mainstream conservative,” he said this afternoon to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Washington D.C, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

“I believe today, as I believed 25 years ago, in small government; fiscal discipline; low taxes; a strong defense, judges who enforce, and not make, our laws; the social values that are the true source of our strength; and, generally, the steadfast defense of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which I have defended my entire career as God-given to the born and unborn.”

Will he convince them?

Here’s what David Keene, chairman of the annual gathering in Washington, D.C., told the Associated Press: “The mutual distrust and animosity between McCain and conservative leaders is very deep and very real. He’s not going to solve his problems with one speech.”

But here’s Mike Huckabee on Conservatives so angry at McCain that they’re threatening not to rally behind him.

“There’s no way that they can call themselves conservative and do that,” he said on CNN’s American Morning. “You know, some people need to switch to decaf.”
PHOTO: John McCain at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would retreat in the face of evil extremists, Mitt Romney says.

John McCain would stand strong, he says.

“I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating al-Qaida and terror,” Romney said.

More from “CNN.”:http://www.cnn.com

PHOTO: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pauses during a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008, in Washington, where he announced he was suspending his faltering presidential campaign. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

First, Hillary Clinton’s announcement that she had lent her campaign $5 million, then this: Her campaign raised $4 million online in the day after polls closed on Super Tuesday.

But Barack Obama has been raising money on her news too: more than $7 million.

It’s still hard to fathom she’s so hard up for cash.

Here was the start of a Washington Post article a year ago today: “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is playing hostess to billionaire Hollywood moguls, millionaire lawyers and venture capitalists here this week as she pushes to raise a record sum for her presidential campaign.”

By the spring, she had raised $26 million in the first 10 weeks of her official campaign and had transferred another $10 million left over from her second Senate race.

It seemed a high bar until Barack Obama announced he had raised about the same amount. And here were the significant differences: He got his money from 100,000 donors, thousands of whom gave $25. And $23.5 million of it was for the primary season as opposed to the general election.

Now Clinton is trying to portray Obama as the establishment candidate. It’s not convincing.

More from AP “here”:http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isOFwdbq0tsqatW6vJpkDRTI1gMgD8ULJOVG0.

PHOTO: Hillary Clinton at a press conference Wednesday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A last observation from the ticker-tape parade for the New York Giants yesterday.

Participants were meant to be carrying signs with this not particularly catchy message:

“This is Gigantic. This is New York City.”

A nice pun, but it doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Too tame.

No surprise then that some parade-goers turned the signs around and wrote their own message on the back.

Short, punchy, rude even: “Boston Sucks.”

PHOTO: New York Giants fans toss confetti during the parade on Tuesday celebrating the Giants Super Bowl victory. The Giants defeated the New England Patriots, 17-14, in Sunday’s National Football League championship game. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

The day before Super Tuesday, the “Gallup Poll Daily”:http://www.gallup.com/poll/104125/Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Election-2008.aspx has Hillary Clinton first with 47 percent of Democratic voters to 43 percent for Barack Obama.

John McCain holds a commanding lead among Republicans, 45 percent to 25 percent for Mitt Romney.

AP PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton campaigns in Massachusetts; John McCain in New Jersey

Here’s a debate you may have had: Has Bill Clinton hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign over the last several weeks?

And here are two polls that asked.

One from the “Pew Research Center”:http://people-press.org found this: “The favorability ratings for both Clinton and Obama among Democratic voters are virtually unchanged over the past month.”

At the same time, more voters dislike the idea of Bill Clinton returning to the White House than before —especially among independents.

The other from “CBS,”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/03/opinion/polls/main3783743.shtml also released yesterday, found voters split on the whether President Clinton had helped or hurt. Thirty-seven percent said he had helped, 36 percent said he had hurt, and 25 percent thought he had made no difference.

The majority, 70 percent, said his involvement made no difference in whom they would vote for.

A snarky item from the Los Angeles Times: Rudy Giuliani spent nearly $50 million to win a single delegate.

That, the newspapers reports, is the worst record of any delegate winner in a presidential race.

More “here”:http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-trailtop1feb01,1,7969342.story?ctrack=4&cset=true

PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani talks to supporters after conceding the Florida Republican primary on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)