... the cover of James Risen's new book, right?

How about this: (via Volokh Conspiracy)

or maybe this: (via LGF)

I wonder if Risen's sharing the book advance with his sources. Just what kind of deals are being made here? It may be a State of War, but it appears to be more like the Buying and Selling of National Security.

More: Reading the article, it seems to me the way an awful lot of the information is threaded together has a tone, method, and intention similar to the Newsweek 'Korans in the toilet' story. It's such a mixture of fact and supposition, first hand eye-witness explanations from the NYT's informants spies sources of what was seen and done mixed with Oh-by-the-ways-I-don't-that-much-about-it, disclaimers, you get the impression this is a NYT proclamation for a fishing derby.

But putting aside all that just for a second, I have to say that to me this is the weirdest sentence in the whole article:

"After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting."

Did I just spot an innocuous error, or are they revealing something that really didn't intend to reveal. They certainly don't mean they put it on the back burner so they could get back to the day to day grind of putting out a paper. So, "conduct additional reporting" on what, may I ask?

Okay, enough sidetracking. Between this secret operation and the secret flights and the secret renditions and the secret black prision camps, that all aren't so secret anymore, (I think I missed a couple) what is there left at our secret agencies to keep secret?

I would think the Justice Department would have boxes full of investigation notices for the leak of classified information by now, but I suspect they don't. There ought to be a veritable economic downturn soon from all the people serving grand jury duty, but I don't it's going to happen until the hawks get spines and actually show some outrage rather than just feign it.

Frist just is not up to it and neither is ... who the heck is minority leader, anyway. Frist is off sticking his finger in ink wells and posing for pictures and Whoeverheis is playing Iraqi resolution games to play bragging rights next Fall. I half expect the big ruckus on the Hill tomorrow to be the the length of scissors allowed on air flights and Keane in front of a microphone worrying about baggage.

Oh wait, the pols are probably going to be adjourn tomorrow. I have to go now and bang my head against the wall. Merry Christmas!