I think Gavin should de-hitch his wagon from Mike Hearn after hearing how Mike proposed centralized checkpointing. The blacklisting thing was his one free pass at a really horrible idea. Now it just looks like he doesn't get what Bitcoin is really about.
I can see why Gavin would utilize XT as an end-run around the political gridlock in core, and I also see that Mike Hearn has a unique perspective and background that is useful, but he should not be a core committer in my opinion. Gavin is the only person qualified to (provisionally) lead the project as far as I can see now, but I think "palling around with Mike Hearn" will be viewed with suspicion, especially if it's unnecessary. Why not just just add in the patch to Core and fork off if necessary?
I'd agree if you're referring to that interview he did, he didn't do the goal of decentralized control any good.
If you've been paying attention there is nothing new in Mike's recent activities. Granted, they have become a little more audacious of late. Probably an artifact of getting pretty much complete control of Gavin and an element of desperation given the fairly amazing progress made by the Blockstream folk. His half-decade long hopes for the system (a monitoring tool controllable by his beloved leaders in mainstreamland) are fluttering away.