Where will the man in the middle of the hottest takeover bid in capitalism be tonight? Not huddled with lawyers and investment bankers or meeting with the family that controls his target. It turns out that Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp. chairman whose bid for Dow Jones and its flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, is the talk of the town, will be honored along with Mayor Koch at the Manhattan Institute’s annual Alexander Hamilton dinner in Midtown.

The decision to honor Mr. Murdoch was no doubt made before the Manhattan Institute had any inkling about the timing of Mr. Murdoch’s bid for Dow Jones. But it bespeaks a talent and a skill at the Manhattan Institute for keeping the organization at the center of the action, and for being able to see over the horizon to what the big upcoming issues will be. Last year at the Hamilton dinner, Mayor Giuliani rose with dog-eared copies of the Institute’s magazine, City Journal, and spoke about how he had “plagiarized” many of the ideas he implemented as mayor directly from the journal’s pages. Now Mr. Giuliani is a leading presidential candidate.

Mr. Murdoch, who already owns the New York Post, may yet emerge as the owner of the Wall Street Journal. Or he may not. But it’s a pretty safe bet that Manhattan Institute scholars will be writing for the opinion pages of both the Post and the Journal — and for The New York Sun — in the year ahead, regardless of how the takeover bid turns out. In the meantime, we congratulate Messrs. Murdoch and Koch for being honored, and the Manhattan Institute for its ability to anticipate the news.