By granting only the German magazine, London’s The Guardian, and The New York Times advance access to its stash of Afghan war reports, WikiLeaks and Assange ensured that the material made a big international news splash, even if experts downplayed its significance. But two subsequent developments suggest that perhaps WikiLeaks and Assange—whose activities at the moment appear to be inextricably entwined—are already failing to live up to their own exalted standards for truth and transparency and could see their credibility eroded, if not ultimately destroyed, by their overindulgence in self-righteousness and hype…

The secret paper’s revelations, while perhaps not the sort of thing a president or CIA director would want to talk about on Meet the Press, are commonplace thoughts that are voiced by pundits and bloggers every day, often with a far more ferocious tone than used by the CIA analysts. The agency’s own reaction to the release of the secret paper came close to a yawn. “These sorts of analytic products—clearly identified as coming from the Agency’s ‘Red Cell’—are designed simply to provoke thought and present different points of view. That’s the kind of thing our government ought to be doing,” says George Little, a CIA spokesman. An American official familiar with the document, who asked for anonymity when discussing a document which is still technically classified, added, “This is not exactly a blockbuster paper.” WikiLeaks offered a predictably grandiose reaction to the CIA’s confirmation that the paper was authentic, tweeting: “CIA usually does not confirm, so CIA likely wants to use Red Cell leak to push for policy change in US.” Ahem. Really?