John Fund e-mails about that CPAC incident:

I appreciate a practical joke as much as the next person, but not when the one played on me at CPAC threatens to spread around the blogosphere and the joke takes on elements of an urban legend.
To set the record straight: The story is that I sat down and used the computer of a noted blogger named Robert Cox at CPAC without his permission. Jonah Goldberg says this might shed light on my respect for property rights. Not when you know what actually happened.
It was a practical joke, at my expense. This is the first CPAC ever where there was a Blogger’s Corner set up in the exhibit area. For several years, however, there has been an Internet Alley sponsored by Town Hall for use by anyone who was willing to stand in line–to use the computers to check e-mail, etc. I passed by the Blogger’s Corner in the exhibit hall at CPAC, did not notice the sign, and asked someone sitting at a computer (a blogger, I now believe) if the computers were available at this location too. He assured me they were and pointed me to a vacant one that had no papers around it. I sat down and for about 20 minutes checked my e-mail on a computer that it turned out was owned by blogger Robert Cox.
At no point while I was sitting there did anyone inform me of my faux pas, and I’m sure some people enjoyed my gullibility. Mr. Cox came back, saw me, and kindly asked how long I would be. Thinking he was someone waiting to use the machine, I said “Just a minute,” and ended my session. We then had a very pleasant chat about his website skewering Keith Olbermann. End of story—well, until the blogosphere latched onto it. Unfortunately, no one who commented on it bothered to ask me to explain my behavior, including people who were present at the time.
Rather than belabor readers with more details, here are two comments from bloggers who were there during my supposed depredations. The first is from Kevin McCullough, an up-and-coming radio talk show host who hosts a fine blog. He is the one who first broke “FundGate” on his website, and while he has now posted my responses he still properly chastises me for not seeing the sign identifying the area as Blogger’s Corner. He was not the person who misdirected me to Mr. Cox’s machine, but in an e-mail to me on Sunday he noted, “I do appreciate your apology and explanation and will accept it gladly. As to the ‘practical joke’ aspect of this story…I claim the fifth. “
I think that makes it pretty clear there was indeed a practical joke at work here that shouldn’t be given any more altitude. As for Mr. Cox, he wrote that, “I am a reader and a fan and had you asked I would have been more than happy to let you use my laptop while I was at lunch. When I found you at my machine I was more bemused than upset (staged photo not withstanding). It comes as no surprise to me that someone actually encouraged you to use my machine as a blogger version of a practical joke. By the time you showed up in Bloggers Corner everyone was pretty tired after several long days in a row, there was not much going on and some folks were getting a little loopy. ‘FundGate’ was a welcome diversion.”
It was not quite as welcome a diversion for me—more like a headache–but I still very much respect both bloggers and, of course, private property. I think the lesson in this is twofold: I should not be so gullible in the future, and bloggers who flay people for alleged sins might do well to get their side of the story first. After all, the next time you could be a victim of a practical joke that gets out of hand and never quite dies because it is preserved in the blogosphere forever.