EDITORIAL CONDUCT UNBECOMING.

WE would have thought whining would be beneath Police Chief William Bratton, a career cop hardened on the streets of Boston and New York.

But when the City Council voted to postpone hiring 320 new cops for the Los Angeles Police Department, Bratton turned on the whimper. If he can't get the new officers, he says, he's taking back his promise to cut homicides by 25 percent and overall crime by 10 percent this year.

Boohoo.

Never mind that the year is almost half over, and the new cops Bratton wants wouldn't be recruited, trained and on the streets before 2004. The bigger point is that the chief likes to sell himself as a man uninterested in excuses - tough enough to get the job done, period.

If his whine were anything more than a stunt to manipulate the City Council, we'd be worried. The LAPD can't afford a chief who breaks down and breaks his word when he doesn't get his way.

Get over it, chief; this is Chinatown, and you knew when you took the job.