My second conclusion about the Wikileaks scandal?  That the New York Times has reached a new level on the smug-and-smarmy-hypocrisy-o-meter.  This seems obvious just as soon as you hear someone make the point.  But it took Scott Johnson, our friend at Powerline, to make the point–and so far as I can tell, Scott’s the only one to make it.  Read this slowly, taking it in.  And if you’re ever tempted to suppose that the mainstream media is merely silly, or callow, but essentially harmless, remember it:

The New York Times is participating in the dissemination of the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it in one way or another via WikiLeaks. My friend Steve Hayward recalls that only last year the New York Times ostentatiously declined to publish or post any of the Climategate emails because they had been illegally obtained. Surely readers will recall Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s inspiring statement of principle: “The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”

Sorry to be weighing in on the Wikileaks matter so late in the day.  After taking the kids to school, I got myself a cup of coffee, sat down, opened my laptop, and, as I had promised Claire I would–if you think she’s compelling onstage, you should see the way she drives us back here in the wings–began to compose a post.  Whereupon my cell phone rang.  Whereupon one thing began leading to another.  Do you have days like that?  Days during which you feel frantically busy but that, by bedtime the same night, almost seem never to have taken place?

Anyway, in all my quick Googlings around on Wikileaks at stolen moments, I came away from the whole affair with a couple of strong feelings, one of which I’ll share right here:  I’ve had it up to here with Saudi Arabia.  Excuse me.  The Saudis, I suppose, are merely being the Saudis.  What I really mean is that I’ve had it up to here with our own government for failing to put the screws to those people.

In his Wall Street Journal column today, our own Bill McGurn.  (The column is behind a paywall, and I’m intent on sneaking out as much of Bill’s prose as the “fair use” doctrine, and the indulgence of his editors, will permit.)

John Boehner knows that today’s White House get-together with Barack Obama is a distraction….The [real] story is this: Democrats remain in charge for the next few weeks, they have some big decisions to make and, at least for now, Mr. Boehner’s relations with Mr. Obama are of far less moment than the president’s relations with his own party…

“See you again,” said the merchant of a store in Kunsan City, Republic of Korea, as I was leaving his business. Apparently, he was saying goodbye, but I didn’t know that at the time. “Maybe,” I said, “or maybe not,” and walked out. It was 1994, and I was starting a one year tour of duty in South Korea, where I also took a part time job teaching English to classes of Korean adults and children. It was an amazing year as I came to appreciate their culture and their devotion to education in general. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how so many of the people I met in that part of the world wanted desperately to master the English language.

I particularly missed my old students while at a truck stop in Tuscaloosa, AL, yesterday. Three young ladies were standing behind the cash register. I think they were being paid to talk amongst themselves, because they paid precious little attention to the customers who were trying to make purchases. I waited in line until it was my turn to stand next to the counter and listen to them for awhile. From the front of the line, I could see that two of the young women were listening intently to the third, nodding their heads in unison as she explained the following story: “I was down wit ma home boy, and he was like pphhhhttttttt. And I was like, for real? And he was like, I dunno. And I was like, na-unnh.” And then, fearing that rigor-mortis would soon set in, the young lady accepted payment for my coffee so that I could like, leave and the next person in line could like, listen to this captivating tale of like, utter incoherence.

Today the 2011 candidates for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame were announced. Who are your Top 3 and why? Inductees will be announced on Jan. 5, 2011. Here’s the list:

Newbies: Jeff Bagwell, Carlos Baerga, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, John Franco, Marquis Grissom, Juan Gonzalez, Lenny Harris, Bobby Higginson, Charles Johnson, Al Leiter, Tino Martinez, Raul Mondesi, John Olerud, Rafael Palmiero, Kirk Reuter, Benito Santiago, B.J. Surhoff, Larry Walker