EDITORIAL IDENTITY CRISIS HAHN CONFUSES HIS INTEREST WITH THE PUBLIC INTEREST.

MAYOR James Hahn might not realize it, but he has much in common with a 17th-century French king.

``L'etat c'est moi (The state is me),'' King Louis XIV, the Sun King, famously said, indicating his egocentrist view that his royalness embodied France itself.

Clearly, Hahn has adopted that imperious attitude, indicating with his actions that he believes ``The city is me.''

Somehow during his more than two decades in public office, Hahn got mixed up. Maybe it happened when he was city attorney, or maybe just in the past few years, but somehow his personal identification merged in his mind with that of the city of Los Angeles. And so now he believes that what's good for Hahn is good for L.A.

That, at least, would explain how he might justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money to pay a private firm to make him look good. If he is the city, the institution, then what's the big deal? Why fritter money on such trivial things as better roads or more cops, when what's really best for L.A. is what's best for Hahn?

Public funds for nakedly political P.R.? It's taxpayer money well spent!

Of course, he isn't the city. The 3.5 million people who live in Los Angeles are. This is no small distinction, but the root of much of what is wrong with Los Angeles. For too long, officials have acted like they own the place and the people are their servants, instead of the other way around.

The details of the mayor's shenanigans were revealed in the billings that P.R. giant Fleishman-Hillard sent to the city for services supposedly rendered to the Department of Water and Power as well as to the Harbor and Airport departments. The invoices for the DWP are the basis for an audit by city Controller Laura Chick that accuses the firm of overbilling $4.2 million out of $24 million in contracts.

Included in those services were thousands of dollars for public events to tout Hahn's prowess as a mayor, including writing press releases, as well as strategizing with the mayor's vast staff on how to enhance his image.

Hahn has brushed off all criticism, saying, ``It's the people of the city who were benefiting from this.''

That argument could only make sense coming from someone who sees the world upside down - or has spent too much time in the insular world of City Hall.

We'd like to give Hahn the benefit of the doubt, that he's just in need of a little political retraining to find himself again. After all, he grew up in a political family, with his father serving so many years as the beloved supervisor from South Los Angeles, and has spent his own career within the walls of City Hall.

Unfortunately for the real city - the people of Los Angeles - it seems unlikely that Hahn wants to grasp that the public isn't there to serve him. He's there to serve the public. It's about time he started.