The political kerfuffle about what New Jersey's Republican governor and the state Assembly's top Democrat did or didn't say privately to each other is totally sweet.
But let's set aside the public he said/she said between Chris Christie and Sheila Oliver, displayed Wednesday in sequential Mother Jones and Philadelphia Inquirer stories, and focus on how a legendary lefty publication (the magazine, not the newspaper) got such entertaining audio of what the governor told a pow-wow of plutocrats and potentates hosted by those legendary right-wing Koch brothers.
Mother Jones and its blogger Brad Friedman say the recordings were "obtained" from inside the top-secret Colorado conclave on June 26. Christie received a hero's welcome at this posh Valhalla near Vail, regaling the audience with tales of conquest against the forces of darkness, aka, Democrats.
But I want to know how the mole who delivered the audio goodies to Mother Jones managed to infiltrate the great hall.
When one is preparing to spy upon a hush-hush, yet festive, bash of oil barons and baronesses, what outfit does one choose?
Something glittery?
Gilded?
At least we can be sure the spy avoided the sartorial overkill favored by James O'Keefe, the Jersey boy turned right-wing stingmaster who starred in his own hidden-cam ACORN expose wearing a "pimp" disguise apparently inspired by an ensemble Kramer made famous on Seinfeld.
And if the spy was a lady, she surely eschewed the platinum-blonde wig and shades that femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) sported for her supposedly clandestine meeting -- in a supermarket! -- with co-conspirator/chump Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in the delicious Double Indemnity.