The joke's on you

As the Iowa caucuses near, Democratic front-runner Howard Dean and his staff are seeking to avoid any fatal political missteps by strictly controlling media access to the former Vermont governor. This week, for example, Dean traveled on a separate plane from his press corps during stops in Arizona and New Mexico.

In converting the Gulfstream jet that carried Dean from California into a press charter, the candidate's aides were careful to remove all campaign materials and transfer them to his new aircraft. However, when a group of four reporters took the seats occupied the night before by Dean and his top aides, they discovered a red folder on which the campaign's political director Kate O'Connor had written the following message: "Gov: Here's the final Iowa caucus plan. Please do not lose this, Kate."

Of course, curiousity got the best of the bunch of reporters, and one of them opened the folder. Inside was a piece of paper addressed to Newton native Jodi Wilgoren, the New York Times reporter assigned to the Dean campaign. The note read: "Jodi, We knew you couldn't resist. Ha Ha!"

Now, that's what we call "gotcha" journalism. (For the record, Wilgoren was not the scribe to open the folder.)