This is just too good. I'm embarrassed to say I've been following this convoluted Valerie Plame story from the very beginning and I'm not about to stop now.

The latest scoop: Rove confirmed Plame's status to Novak after hearing about it from other journalists. Note that this certainly doesn't get anybody him off the hook. But it reminds me of the good old days in the newsroom at Prague Business Journal when we used to hear a rumor, call a several, er, high level sources to ask if they'd heard about the rumor, then sit on it for a day or two before calling several more high level sources to ask again if they'd heard the rumor. Since Prague is such a small town and all our sources talked to each other then naturally everybody had heard the rumor by that point and we could report - indeed, it would be irreponsible of us not to - the fact that this rumor was circulating, and indeed we'd heard it confirmed from several high level sources.

OK, OK, I'm exaggerating here. We never actually did that at PBJ, not to my knowledge at least. Honest to goodness, we didn't and wouldn't have. But we'd joke around about it, and it was well within the realm of the possible.

And then again, why didn't we? Cuz if Bob Novak can do it...!