Silly John Podhoretz: Don’t you read the Note? You’re not supposed to actually identify who the source was for today’s blistering Rove’s-future-in-doubt story in the Washington Post. You’re just supposed to say,”‘It’s SO obvious who those quotes are from,’ with a small shake of the head and a knowing half smile.” (And here we thought all of DC’s journalists had just developed palsy.) Granted, the shake of the head is hard to pull off online, but maybe you should have invented an emoticon for it or something, instead of posting this brilliant thesis: WH press puppy “Scott McClellan’s messy fingerprints are all over the WaPo story, as even Bush will be able to see.” MORE »

Figuring out who the not-as-much losers were in our Indictment Bingo contest proved to be a rather complicated undertaking. If only Fitzy had not shown such discretion! We weighed entries based on ratio of right-to-wrong guesses and how early they were turned in. Wonk Dad wound up creating an equation for it the explanation of which is after the jump. If you feel you were unfairly judged, we will forward your statistical analysis to him.

In any case, the “most correct” proved to be those with the quickest fingers and the least confidence that justice would be done. They are:

Third place and winner of a stale pack of Air Force One M&Ms is “Lorenzo.” Please get in touch, Lorenzo!
Second place and winner of an “Animal House” DVD is Thaddeus Nguyen.
First place and winner of breakfast for two at the St. Regis is “Abacusdog.”

All together now: “We must always ask ourselves not only what is legal, but what is right!”

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• “A nasty man recently threw me in jail, and several of my least favorite co-workers just ganged up on me in the pages of my own paper. Needless to say, these critics are a bunch of pansy assholes.” J.M. in Sag Harbor asks the Ethicist. [Panopticist]
• “Relentless and totally out of control,” “eager to let you know that she travelled in a world of international intrigue and important people,” who could they possibly be talking about? [Gawker]
• Arianna reads between the telephone lines regarding Libby’s call to Tim Russert. [HuffPo]
• “If only lies left semen stains.” [The Daily Show]
• Jason Zengerle zings Joe Wilson: “Wilson’s op-ed was entitled, ‘Our 27 months of hell.’ A better title might have been, ‘How to turn your 15 minutes into 27 months.’” [TNR's The Plank]
• The WP bundles all the scandal buzzwords into one incoherent mess. (Hey, that’s what blogs are for!) [WP]

Top four signs that Matt Cooper is running out of material for further first-person articles about his involvement in the CIA leak investigation, which are starting to sound less like journalism and more like Bob Graham’s journals:

4. “On Aug. 23, I had a tuna sandwich and gave a deposition in Abrams’ Washington office about the conversation.” MORE »

Patrick Fitzgerald is right: Baseball metaphors are all the rage. They are just usually much, much shorter than his. By our count, Fitzgerald’s “explanation” of why his leak investigation did not result in leak charges lasted about as long as the investigation and left us feeling more confused. Karl threw a fastball that hit Valerie Plame but Joe Wilson is umpire and Patrick Fitzgerald is the sand and the first baseman has WMDs… Isn’t the baseball metaphor most relevant to Scooter Libbey right now the one about “pitching” and “catching”? MORE »

We’ve gotten a lot of responses to Ana’s query about Scooter Libby’s prison nickname. Hooray…yes, most of you have surmised, correctly, that the dull days of prison life are broken up by constant assfucking. So, shout-outs to all the Gimps, the Loose Lips, the Sphincters, the “just Bitches”, and the Leakies. Many of you picked one of Tina Fey’s favorite words: “Cooter.” Especial thanks to whoever proffered “Traficant’s Bitch.” We’re still wrapping our mind around that. Beam us up! MORE »

I can appreciate Patrick Fitzgerald’s by-the-book, just-the-facts approach to this press conference. But the thought occurs — what would it be like to have this guy as a dad? MORE »

Fox is reporting that Scooter Libby has submitted his resignation. Does this mean that someone has the paperwork somewhere? We’re clicking on that dumb site. Who’s Fitzgerald’s webmaster, anyway — Ken Starr? MORE »

Let’s use these last few minutes of tea-leaf reading carefully. First, McClellan has told the press corps in the most recent WH pool report that there will “not be an announcement today regarding judicial nominees.” Also, the WH will NOT have anything to say about the Fitzgerald investigation until after the announcement of the findings. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

We think it means that the White House has realized even Americans are too smart to think a SCOTUS announcement today would be just a coincidence. It also means that they’re more time to campaign for Butterstick. As for Rove: Gonna be more stressful winter than you thought. Maybe you can borrow some of Cheney’s heart medicine.

Report after the jump

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FOX News is asserting their full spectrum dominance of Plamegate by reporting that they have just brought four trays of doughnuts in to the grand jury room. To the beltway-outsider, this might sound like awfully chintzy fare — especially for one of those last day of work/thanks for all your help types of parties — but we remind you: in contrast to the ham sandwich, the doughnuts had pre-arranged blanket immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony. Their hot, delicious testimony. — DCEIVER