Being Polite Is the Best Politics

What’s wrong with City Atty. James K. Hahn and City Councilman Michael Woo? Why are they tiptoeing around the biggest event in City Hall in many decades--the Bradley investigation?

They are natural rivals. Both have high-profile roles in the investigation. Both are potential candidates for mayor at the next election. Both are hungry with ambition.

In this era of high-intensity combat politics, you would expect them to vigorously attack Tom Bradley. He is a wounded, slow-moving target, and well-timed assaults might put Hahn and Woo in the headlines and on television. Such exposure, it could be argued, might advance their careers.

But there is neither combat nor relentless pursuit. Rather, Hahn and Woo are behaving with the utmost politeness. So much so, in fact, that they are perfect illustrations of the caution with which the Bradley affair is being treated at City Hall.

There was a glimpse of this last week, when Woo invited Hahn to testify at a meeting of the council’s special ethics committee.

Hahn is the author of the recent investigative report that declared Mayor Bradley innocent of crimes, but was highly critical of his ethics.

Woo, the committee chairman, leads an investigation of the Hahn report. His job is to calm fears among council members that the city attorney was unduly gentle--or actually threw the game--when he stopped short of accusing the mayor of a crime.

They looked like politicians on the way up. Woo wore a conservative dark blue suit and a blue button-down shirt. He is a banker’s son and has a graduate degree in planning from UC Berkeley. The image he projects is calm, cool, evocative of high-tech research and fast PCs.

Hahn wore a more Populist brown suit. That and his plain white shirt reflected his roots--son and protege of Supervisor Kenny Hahn, master of old shoe politics.

Their voices and gestures seemed to say, this is dangerous territory. Both men appeared nervous. Hahn played with a pen as he spoke. Woo never smiled and weighed each word carefully. Both their voices were boyishly high-pitched.

Woo spoke of “the specter of a sitting mayor” using his office to benefit himself and others. Hahn asked for more investigative power. Last month, hearings held on the Bradley affair by Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and Richard Alatorre--also rivals and potential mayoral candidates--were just as cautious.

The only notable exception has been Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who asked some hard questions at another session of the Woo committee. She wanted to know why Hahn’s staff did not think the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to prosecute the mayor.

Why is everyone being so civil? Because Tom Bradley, despite his slippage in the polls, remains a City Hall icon.

Several council members are fond of him personally.

Others, like Yaroslavsky, fear a backlash from white liberal voters if they attack him. That would be damaging in this heavily Democratic city.

Woo is in this category. Although he has a strong ethnic base in a growing Asian population--he is the city’s only Asian elected official--he would need broader support to run for mayor. He is also a liberal Democrat, faced with the same uncertainties that confront Yaroslavsky.

And, Bradley still commands strong support among black voters. That has silenced City Councilman Nate Holden, who earned Bradley’s undying dislike for his unceasing criticism when he ran against Bradley for mayor this year.

It must also be on Hahn’s mind, especially after last week’s committee hearings.

Three rows of hard-backed benches where the audience sat were filled with parishioners from the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. This is Tom Bradley’s church, and the parishioners were older members of the congregation, men and women who are the strong backbone of South Los Angeles and its politics.

All they wanted was to make sure Bradley got a fair shake, said the Rev. Cecil L. Murray, their pastor. He did not testify, nor did anyone else from the church. They just sat there, solemnly watching the hearing. That’s all they had to do.

Bradley’s career has been a source of great pride in the black community and its leaders have repeatedly warned that they will turn against anyone who tries to bring him down. This has been the constituency of Kenny Hahn, South L.A.’s favorite white politician. It would be part of Jim Hahn’s coalition for a mayoral race.

Hahn was reminded, most unsubtly, that Tom Bradley still has friends. Woo also observed that lesson. Even Molina, the council member most critical of the mayor, saw it. She attacked Hahn’s effectiveness as a prosecutor, rather than blast the mayor.

Nobody wants to kick a living legend, even a tarnished one.