It's a combination of issues so hot, an op-ed about reopening King-Harbor hospital doesn't even make the top three! Leading off is a pair of op-eds about best-selling memoirist Sarah Palin -- one friendly, one not so much. Matthew Continetti, associate editor of the right-leaning Weekly Standard and author of "The Persecution of Sarah Palin," tops the page with an analysis of the many reinventions of Alaska's erstwhile governor: first culture warrior, then watchdog, reformer, would-be vice president and, now, celebrity:

But Michael Carey, a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News, retorts that Palin's new book shows her to be more of a whiner than a leader:

(Are you planning to help Palin's publisher recoup its advance? Take our poll!)

Rounding out the op-ed page, Times columnist Tim Rutten urges the University of California Board of Regents to approve a proposed partnership with the county Board of Supervisors to reopen and jointly oversee Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.

On the other side of the Opinion divide, the Times editorial board gives Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown a dash of sympathy being "trapped in a political cage from which there will be no easy escape." The cause? His office just gave a pass to Brown's former communications director for surreptitiously recording interviews with reporters, and now liberals are pushing him to investigate a pair of independent filmmakers who surreptitiously recorded ACORN employees in California advising them how to set up a prostitution ring (or, in the case of ACORN's Felix Harris in Los Angeles, refusing to help after learning the prostitutes would be minors).

The board also urges the District of Columbia Council not to bow to pressure from the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, which has threatened to stop providing social services if the council approves same-sex marriages in D.C.

(True personal story to illustrate how conservative the Archdiocese of Washington is: I'm a Catholic, and I got engaged to be married while I was living in D.C. But when I asked a priest at my church if I could have the nuptials there in five months, he told me I needed to wait at least a year to receive the church's blessing. And if I didn't receive the church's blessing, my soul would be "lost to perdition." In other words, I'd spend eternity in Hell because I'd gotten married the wrong way. As it happened, my future mother-in-law lived outside Baltimore, and the diocese there accommodated us without hesitation. That was 19 years ago, and we're still happily married. Whether I'm on the road to perdition is a wholly separate issue.)

Finally, the board gives its support, with reservations, to the latest version of a proposed federal "shield law" to help journalists shield the identity of confidential sources.

Illustration: Ken Fallin For The Times

-- Jon Healey