A further word on today’s David Corn/Michael Isikoff story. Isikoff called this afternoon to discuss the number of times he talked to Karl Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, in the course of reporting on the CIA leak case. That, Isikoff says, certainly qualifies as having interviewed the Rove camp for the new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. On the other hand, the Rove side believes there is a “huge difference,” in spokesman Mark Corallo’s words, between talking to Isikoff about the case on a daily (or weekly) news basis and for Hubris. “There is clearly a difference between what appears in Newsweek and what would appear in a David Corn book,” Corallo told me. The Rove side stands by its contention that it was never contacted to talk for the book project.

The story with the Libby camp is much clearer. It seems safe to say that neither Isikoff nor Corn got much of anything out of the Libby team, nor did they really try. Corn’s story that, “At one of the Libby hearings, as [lawyer Ted] Wells was walking into the courtroom, I asked if he was talking to reporters, he said no,” isn’t much of a defense.

The bigger problem with Hubris, which is suggested in Corallo’s comment, is that its co-authors are one respected investigative reporter (Isikoff) and one partisan writer for a journal of opinion (Corn). In addition, Corn was actually part of the CIA leak story — with Joseph Wilson, he helped get the ball rolling in July 2003 — and not simply an outside observer. And just to top it off, Corn is the proprietor of a website called bushlies.com. All of that is part of the story, too.