Despite dispising he man for his traitorous acts in the '60s and his recent record on as the legislative champion of street thugs (which seems differentiated to me only by the attire of his constituents fromt the position of an East Coast pol on the mob's payroll), I still held a begrudging respect for the man as a passionate warrior for his cause.

Until the city council fiasco.

When he opted to "move into the district" just so he could run, he went from being an electable Jerry Rubin to just another professional political hack.

What would you consider "traitorous acts"? Personally, I think you should never call someone a traitor unless you can prove conclusively that they aided an enemy of the state. Otherwise you either look like a rhetorical jackass, or you're libeling the person.

There's no need to rehash whether or not Hayden is a "traitor"--he's been free and in the public's face (as much as possible for him) for all of the subsequent twenty-five years, so obviously no government, even including the post-9/11 kleptocracy, seems to think he was ever a "traitor". But this leads to a broader point: why does he seem out of step so often? I think where Tom fails to connect is in understanding that people younger than him have very little sense of what the fine Latin word "civitas" might mean, let alone the French bon mots "homme engage". For those who have never been issued a draft card, being apolitical is the norm; bread and circuses are still what most people want, 2000 years after Juvenal, and real politics just doesn't interest them, as long as Home Depot and Costco and Walmart are open.

Hayden may not be as much the obsessed consumerist as the typical fan of Home Depot or Walmart, but he ain't exactly slumming in his comfy digs in LA's cozy westside.

Love to see more people like him move closer to crusty, ratty central LA, where the prevailing political sentiments are just as liberal, but where people's egalitarianism is really put to the test.

I don't understand what you're saying. "Crusty, ratty central LA" is full of people who make money and woundn't live in the suburbs even if they were free. Are you begrudging a liberal's right to make money? Paying for services from which all people benefit is a long long way from taking a vow of poverty.

Or are you one of those Unkle Miltie dullards who suppose that owning up to the fact that ponying up for good public schools and good infrastructure and good public health are GOOD things is tantamount to calling for "egalitarianism"? Or one of those guys who paid $233 a quarter to go to CalStateNowhere and who now thinks that education is best at a private school for $25,000 a year? If so, I'd have to say, get a clue as to how you got to where you are right now. Especially if you rode in on a fairly smooth freeway.

Actually I think Hayden talks fairly candidly in the interview about occupying a political niche. He realizes that his politics are too left for mass consumption even in LA, one of the most liberal cities around. And he doesn't care, which I admire about him. Niche doesn't equal fringe in my book. He was elected to the state Legislature by the people of Santa Monica and West L.A. at least a half-dozen times.

Sorry, but I believe census data indicate LA's central neighborhoods are among the poorest in America. And the number of people who make a somewhat impressive amount of money (and not the amount that a person who lives in a hole in the wall, and who relies on buses to get around, has to contend with) still is largely confined to the city's westernmost portions or farther away in those burbs you mention. That's just the way it is.

And I don't mind liberals making money. I just hate it when they have to go on their I'm-really-a-common-man guilt trips, where even though they're deepdown just as status conscious, if not even as outright snobby, as anyone else earning a good living, they just have to cling to the belief that everyone but themselves are materialistic, that everyone but themselves either avoid or spend as little time as possible on the wrong side of town.

They're sort of like those teachers who love to talk about the virtues of public schools (and who in many instances label themselves as feel-good liberals) but who, god forbid, would never send their own kids to anything but a private school, at least one that substitutes for certain neighborhood public ones. Or those campuses, which such teachers might hem and haw about (when they're trying to be candid), are a wee bit too, well, you know urban and rough.