Dave Shapiro made a good point earlier this week concerning the impact of Gov. Abercrombie’s upcoming appointment to replace Rep. Maile Shimabukuro. Shapiro puts it in the context of the ongoing leadership stalemate in the majority caucus, where Shimabukuro was among the “dissident” group challenging Say.

If they’re so inclined, the Democratic Party and Abercrombie could appoint a replacement who would break the deadlock and give Say the final vote he needs to keep his job and organize the House. Or they could lend support to the dissidents by doing the opposite.

There are two levels here. Who will be on the list prepared by the party? And who will Gov. Abercrombie select? These choices may say a lot about the direction of the next four years.

Meanwhile, at year’s end, these two items struck me as sort of the Yin and Yang of the times.

On one end, the lawsuit by the State of New York against Ernst & Young for its role in the cooking of the books at Lehman Brothers, courtesy of the White Collar Crime Prof Blog.

Then, on the other end of the spectrum, the Adventures of Unemployed Man, along with cohorts including Wonder Mother, Plan B, and others.

Funny, but pointedly so.

Finally, at year’s end, a most sobering view of mainstream journalism from Glenn Greenwald, writing on Salon.com.

From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks — the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy — have been . . . America’s intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them — even when you explain it — that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.

What an astounding feat to train a nation’s journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists — of all people — lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes — from all eras and all cultures — could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists — of all people — to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that’s exactly the journalist class we have.