TIME TO RING CURTAIN DOWN ON OLSON.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

When I last wrote about Sara Jane Olson, aka Kathleen Soliah, libel laws compelled me to call her an ``accused'' terrorist. This time, however, I may call her an admitted terrorist since, for now anyway, that's what she is. But that could change Monday, when Olson officially tries to rescind her twice-tendered guilty plea, so I had best get the T-word out while I still can.

In 1975, Olson and her terrorist pals in the Symbionese Liberation Army tried to plant pipe bombs, specially designed to maim and kill as many people as possible, under Los Angeles Police Department squad cars - one outside an International House of Pancakes, the other by an LAPD station. She then fled justice and lived in Minnesota for 25 years as a fugitive, soccer mom, part-time activist and community theater buff.

When the law finally caught up with her in 1999, Olson rallied the moral and financial support of fellow ``progressives'' across the country, loudly proclaiming her innocence. So it came as a surprise when she pleaded guilty on Oct. 31 to helping SLA militants try to murder LAPD officers.

More surprising still was that she disavowed her plea minutes later. ``I pleaded to something of which I am not guilty,'' she told reporters at an impromptu press conference. In the post 9-11 world, she reasoned, jurors were unlikely to give a terrorist like her much of a break, so she had no choice but to strike a deal with prosecutors.

As her own lawyer put it, Olson's backtrack made Judge Larry Fidler, who was hearing the case, ``peeved as a boiled owl.'' Fidler called the celebrity fugitive back into the courtroom a week later and made her explicitly own up to her crimes.

It wasn't easy.

``I want to make it clear,'' Olson said at the hearing, ``that I did not make that bomb, I did not possess that bomb, and I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty.''

``Because you are in fact guilty?'' Fidler asked.

``Yes,'' she replied.

That should have ended it. But not for Olson. Last week, attorney Tony Serra filed a motion to withdraw his client's plea, arguing that, through his own fault, Olson wasn't fit to make it. ``I, in part, take responsibility,'' he wrote in the motion, ``for creating conditions in her mind that amounted to psychological duress.''

That puts Serra in the position of rendering a psychological diagnosis he's not qualified to make. It also forces him to admit that he more or less intimidated his own client, which presumably falls outside the bounds of ethical lawyering. (Not that Olson minds. She calls Serra ``brilliant'' in her petition to Fidler).

This new legal strategy suggests that Serra, like Olson, can't be trusted to tell the truth. Serra now insists that ``at no time has Ms. Olson ever conceded to me her factual guilt with respect to any of the charges.'' But three weeks ago, he remarked that ``Yes, she's guilty. She didn't lie to the court.''

Officials at the District Attorney's Office report that of the 50,000 criminals who cop pleas in Los Angeles County each year, not many try to change their minds, and almost none succeed. The state Penal Code sets very high standards for both cause and evidence to withdraw a plea. Olson's complaint that ``cowardice prevented me from doing what I knew I should'' hardly seems to rise to that level. She may be a coward, but cowardice never gave anyone the right to make a repeated mockery of the criminal justice system.

So why would Olson stake what's left of her credibility, and Serra compromise his legal reputation, on so flimsy an appeal?

It's probably about saving face and bolstering the cause.

Many of Olson's friends, neighbors and ideological soul mates spent a lot of money - some even took second mortgages on their homes - to pay for her $1 million bail and her legal defense. To simply plead guilty would be to expose her supporters for the ideological dupes that they are. Better for Olson first to plead guilty (in hopes of getting a lesser sentence), then try to take it back, thereby enabling her to carry on her farcical portrayal of the left-wing martyr, victim of the American system she has always despised.

Or, there's the explanation offered by a spokesperson at the District Attorney's Office: ``She's a drama queen; that's what she majored in in college. She's a frustrated actor looking for one more shot at the stage.''

It's time for the curtain to fall on this sad performance once and for all.