EDITORIAL HOLLYWOOD AL.

Gore is a different man in Beverly Hills than he is in the ValleyWHENAl Gore came out to the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday, he was a man of the people - in short sleeves, no tie, eating tamales.

Speaking in a middle-class neighborhood in North Hills, he delivered a middle-class appeal about protecting consumers' privacy from corporate invasion.

It was Populist Al, workingman's hero.

A night before in Beverly Hills at a billionaire's mansion, guests who paid $10,000 a couple to help the Democrats raise $4.2 million saw a very different Al Gore - Hollywood Al, candidate to the stars.

Dressed to kill and nibbling on a feast personally prepared by Wolfgang Puck, Hollywood Al charmed the celebrity audience, including executives from DreamWorks, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema.

The same folks Populist Al just publicly denounced last week.

The same folks the Clinton-Gore administration accuses of making a dangerously violent product and marketing it toward kids.

The same folks Populist Al warned better ``clean up their act,'' or else face federal regulation.

Hollywood must have cleaned up its act in a hurry. Also at the Beverly Hills fund-raiser was Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, a longtime Hollywood critic. Lieberman had only kind words to say about the business he usually condemns.

``Al and I have tremendous regard for this industry,'' he gushed. ``We're both fans of the products that come out of the entertainment industry'' - by which, we assume, he must mean its generous campaign contributions to the Democratic Party.

Lieberman added that Hollywood had no reason to take the threat of government sanction seriously. ``We will never put the government into the position of telling you by law, through law, what to make,'' he said.

Gore must have been bluffing when he issued his six-month ultimatum. That was just a way to convince voters that he shared their disgust with much of the trash that passes for entertainment these days.

Gore seems to be hoping that the entertainment industry will know not to take Populist Al too seriously, and that Hollywood Al won't be seen beyond the safe confines of a few Beverly Hills estates.

He's opted for the strategy of bashing Hollywood by day, then kissing up to its bigwigs at night.

It would have been nice to have seen a little more backbone at the entertainment industry fund-raiser Monday night. It would have been nice to have seen Gore and Lieberman stand their ground and protect the people they invoke in their populist rhetoric, not kowtow to the special interests who endow their campaigns.

The public tends not to expect much from its politicians, but it's always hoping for better. More sincerity - and less cynicism - would do a lot more than any amount of false posturing or cheap money-grubbing.