The tell-all recounts the dissolution of her  marriage to Matthew Doull, a partner at Pluribus (a part owner of Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, AdWeek) and stepnephew of fraudent publisher Conrad Black.

News of the affair was broken by Page Six a little over a year ago, when Ms. Ward was spotted at her book party for The Devil's Poker with a disencumbered left hand.  At the time, Mr. Doull was camped out in former Vogue editor Plum Syke's unoccupied apartment.

Ms. Ward's update makes new details public:

[In] March last year, while I was not sure if he would stay with me or leave, my ex put pictures of his 23-year-old girlfriend on Facebook when they went on holiday to Brazil. ‘I love your smell . . . your taste,’ he wrote. There was a picture of her in a hotel room on Copacabana beach with a champagne breakfast spread in front of her.

[...]

Until that moment, I had no idea he had a girlfriend. I recognised her – she was Vogue writer Selby Drummond, a smiley 23-year-old whom he had sat next to at several dinners recently. Until that moment, I hadn’t given her a second thought.

Ms. Drummond is now a Vogue accessories editor, and--total coincidence--a pal of Bee Shaffer, Anna Wintour's daughter. The two are still an item.

So why give the director's cut now? The Globe reports that the Mail paid her £5,000 to dish.

“So the Mail is saying, ‘We’ll wire you the money into your bank account’ at the exact moment that he stopped paying,” says Ms. Ward on the phone from New York. “That’s the only reason I did it. I wrote it on Friday morning in two hours. It was a lot of money and I needed to not turn this woman out on the street.”

We like to think that if you sleep in the right circles, every failed relationship is a savings bond.

Ms. Sykes originally brought a show based on her Bergdorf Blondes book to the WB a few years ago. But they passed. NBC seems to love it: "I think Plum has a unique insight into social dynamics in a way that she’s able to find these characters that are at once sympathetic and aspirational," producer Charlie Corwin told Variety.

“Tamsin’s current members are far more connected than she can dream of being,” said a Supper Club member. “She’s wholly relying on them for introductions and using their names and status to build a club that will eventually cater only to the bridge-and-tunnel set.”

One of the club’s ambassadors agreed. “All these people are jumping on board, but I think it’s slowly backfiring,” he said. “She’s not offering a service to the boldface names. She’s using these people to bring in the mass; that’s how she’s going to make her money.”

The ambassador recalled one member griping that she had spent $100 to have a dinner at the Spotted Pig, a meal that she normally pays $40 for, and that she had met no new people there. (The Supper Club charges $750 to join, along with the fees for its events.)

At The Supper Club’s holiday party at the new office space-cum-party venue Stark on Gramercy, Ms. Lonsdale’s confidence was still running high. “I feel that New Yorkers accepted us with open arms, and they’ve been nothing but positive,” she said. “We have great turnouts, and it’s a really cool kind of people.”

Ms. Lonsdale boasted that something exciting always happens at her get-togethers. Take that night at the Spotted Pig. “We were having a very civilized dinner, and suddenly, uh, the music got cranked up, and there were 50 movers and shakers on the dance floor, and Jay-Z and Beyoncé were hanging out with us.”

There was also the time at the Paris Commune when only 15 of Ms. Lonsdale’s expected 30 guests turned up. The restaurant agreed to accommodate the smaller party but asked that she pay a higher tip to make up for the space and staff they set aside for her. According to the ambassador, she at first refused to fork up the higher amount, then tried to pay it by check. (A spokesman for Supper Club said that this was because corporate credit cards hadn’t arrived yet, and that she paid the standard 20 percent.)

Ms. Lonsdale originated the Supper Club in London; that outfit has 1,000 members. So far the New York faction has 300 members, with 70 people waiting to join. “I’m vetting them,” she said of the aspirants. “I don’t want to grow too big.” (Though, she added, “A thousand is my goal for this time next year.”)

In the immediate future, Ms. Lonsdale is planning a trip to Art Basel. “We’re having a dinner Dec. 5 at the Raleigh,” she chirped. “I’m hosting it with Martin Kredid, who’s going out with Alan [Rudolph], who’s the CEO of, um, Ocean Drive.”

“Why is she hosting a dinner in Miami?” wondered the anonymous ambassador.

“It’s my party … everybody’s in,” Ms. Lonsdale said, adding somewhat contradictorily: “I’m looking for unique people. I don’t want people who fit into the box.”

Ms. Sheinkman, who made two book deals for Ms. Sykes with Miramax Books totaling over $2 million, said it came as a shock when she received a voicemail from Ms. Sykes in which she dropped the agent because she was dissatisfied with a third deal, a movie deal, that Ms. Sheinkman had brokered with Miramax.

When Ms. Sheinkman made the deal with Miramax Books to buy Ms. Sykes' novel, Bergdorf Blondes, she said she and Ms. Sykes agreed to wait to sell the film rights until the book was completed. So upon delivery of the book early this year, Ms. Sheinkman started looking around for a co-agent, a film agent, to shop the book to Hollywood producers.

"[CAA agent] Shari Smiley made a broad submission in Hollywood to major studios and consulted with Plum and me-we had a conference call to brainstorm about the list of potentially interested producers, studios, etc. And Shari made that submission in earnest, and Miramax seemed quite close, actually, but the book was turned down by most of the people on the list in Hollywood," said Ms. Sheinkman.

Around the time of her New York book party on Tuesday, April 13, the same week Bergdorf Blondes hit the best-seller list, Ms. Sheinkman said Ms. Sykes started to get antsy about not yet having a film deal. She said Ms. Sykes was planning a trip to Los Angeles the following week to find new film representation because she wasn't satisfied with the job Ms. Smiley was doing.

"She had basically decided that she wanted to meet with CAA in person when she was there, but she also decided that she also wanted to meet with a handful of other Hollywood co-agents, and it was clear that she was not happy with CAA," said Ms. Sheinkman. Her former literary agent said Ms. Sykes contacted CAA partner Bryan Lourd to have a private meeting with him, as well as Jim Wyatt, the head of William Morris, and Howie Sanders, the head of UTA, among other agencies.

"I heard she was calling these people and she hadn't even told me," said Ms. Sheinkman. "I offered to set up these meetings for her and figured she could decide if it doesn't go well. When I heard she called Jim Wyatt, I was surprised because we don't co-agent with [William Morris]."

Around the same time, the day after the book party in New York, Ms. Sheinkman said she got a call from Miramax vice president Charles Layton, who surprised her.

"'Harvey's seen the light,'" Ms. Sheinkman remembers him saying. "'He's really interested in film rights.'"

At that point, Ms. Sheinkman said she was pleased but initially skeptical, because Miramax had been tentative in making an offer. But when Miramax said they would make an offer on the spot, she said, she knew they were serious. Since she wasn't a film agent and knew Ms. Sykes was looking for new film representation the following week in L.A., she asked if she could postpone accepting an offer another week. They agreed on a deal in which Miramax would make an offer within 24 hours of Ms. Sykes finding a film agent, and then they would give her five days to accept, at the end of which both parties had the right to walk away.

A source familiar with the situation said those five days have since been extended because Ms. Sykes is submitting her book to other producers.

The two spoke while in L.A., but didn't attend any meetings together. The day after she returned from the trip, Ms. Sheinkman said she got another cell-phone message from Ms. Sykes, this one the last.

"She said, 'You've done a brilliant job on my book deal, but I regret that I was forced to sign that agreement with Miramax.' I wasn't even there when she signed that agreement. We both agreed beforehand that a pre-emptive deal was a good idea. She went on and said, 'I realize now that was a huge mistake for me to sign that agreement with Miramax. I feel unhappy with the way the film-rights stuff and the CAA stuff turned out, so I think I should find another agent.'"

Ms. Sykes was promoting her book in London and wouldn't comment on her relationship with her former agent, but her publicist at Miramax Books, Hillary Bass, confirmed that Ms. Sykes was no longer working with Ms. Sheinkman.

"I feel completely satisfied with the two book deals I made for her, and if I can't make an author happy making over $2 million in book deals for them before their book even comes out, I don't know what I can do," Ms. Sheinkman complained.

Ms. Smiley and her cohorts at CAA were unaware that Ms. Sykes was unsatisfied with their representation.

"We've had correspondence with [Ms. Sykes] and she said she had decided to go elsewhere, but there were notes that were passed back and forth, nice notes, invitations to her book parties," said Wendy Smith, a CAA spokeswoman. "The fact that she was not happy was news to the people she worked with here, and they had made submissions of the book to producers, and I think she fired them before they had any chance to get any response."

Ms. Sheinkman said she will still get the commission on the deals she sold.

Ms. Bass said Ms. Sykes has chosen Janklow & Nesbit Associates to be her new literary agency.

-Alexandra Wolfe

The Singing Food Critic

Guests who attended the Irvington Institute for Immunological Research benefit at the Four Seasons restaurant paused in their steps on the way to the buffet in the kitchen. At the yearly benefit, which draws the likes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Steve Schwartzman, Wilbur Ross and Regis Philbin, guests file out of the Grill Room into the kitchen and load their plates with food from long buffet tables there. On the kitchen wall was what appeared to be a larger-than-life poster whose caption read, "The New New York Times Food Critic," leading many to believe that the face on the poster was that of new Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni.

Guests presumed chattily that the managers had put the picture on the wall so chefs and waiters would recognize Mr. Bruni's face-hardly a well-known one as yet-when he came in to sample the Four Seasons' fare.

Mr. Bruni, the former Rome bureau chief at The Times, took the job in April after The Times reportedly made offers to writer Jay McInerney, author Bill Buford and former television critic Julian Barnes, prompting some to conclude that The Times' efforts to pull in a boldface name to review restaurants had ended in a draw.

But when The Transom asked co-owner Julian Niccolini whether he had a poster of Frank Bruni up on his kitchen wall, he laughed:

"Who is he anyway?" Mr. Niccolini asked.

In fact, harried Four Seasons staffers hoping to pick Mr. Bruni out of the lunchtime crowd using the poster as a crib would go astray, he said.

"Somebody from The New York Times sent me a picture of Placido Domingo," he said. "It was a picture of Placido Domingo and said 'The new New York Times food critic.'"

He said that when Ruth Reichl first became the food critic, all the chefs passed around her picture.

"It happened to be in everybody's kitchen," he said, "so this one was a joke."

-A.W.

The Simpsons

Although Jessica Simpson probably wishes she'd opted for StarKist brand tuna instead of Chicken of the Sea, her infamous culinary quandaries (Buffalo wings, anyone?) are finally paying off. Hershey's has signed the pop star and her actress sister Ashlee as spokeswomen for their new Ice Breakers breath mint, Liquid Ice. The campaign for the fluid-filled capsules asks, "Is it liquid or is it ice?"

It was both on the morning of May 17, when the Simpson girls were scheduled for a press conference touting the new breath freshener. Ice sculptures dripped as the proceedings were delayed for over two hours because the helicopter chartered to fly the songbird in from J.F.K. was canceled due to fog.

Once the girls found a driver to bring them in, they gamely posed with the product, flashing teeth as sparkly as their diaphanous camisoles.

"They're our favorite for makeout sessions!" Jessica proclaimed.

"Which I don't have!" Ashlee coyly interjected.

Jessica knocked the teeth out of that coy rejoinder.

"Every day it's another guy!" she said of her sister.

We'll see for ourselves when Ashlee Simpson's reality show premieres on MTV this summer.

"You see her break hearts, you see her heart get broken. She doesn't take any of my dating advice-she's too stubborn for that!" laughed Jessica before admitting, "I don't have good dating advice because I'm the marryin' kind of girl anyway, so any guy I've ever wanted to date I wanted to marry."

Ashlee may be following in Jessica's well-heeled footsteps with an upcoming reality series and album, but like Nicky Hilton and Mary-Kate Olsen before her, she has distanced herself from her sister by darkening her blonde tresses.

"I finished 7th Heaven and I'd had the same damn hairstyle for two seasons, so I took the Clairol bottle and just poured it on my head!" Ashlee said, adding that family members were pleasantly surprised by the sooty new hue.

"It really works with her music, too," said Jessica seriously. But not with Jessica's acting career, she assured The Transom. "I like being blond. It's my way to flirt. It lets you get away with more."

That wasn't the case last week when the bubbly star found herself being berated by a bouncer at the Los Angeles club Nacionale. "Somebody in my entourage was picked up by the neck and thrown out, and I went to save the day, and the security guard was yelling things out that were not true, and it really upset me," she said. "I cried a lot, a lot, a lot, and then Nick [Lachey, her husband] came to my rescue!"

Several days before, her chivalrous hubby also saved a Houston high-school senior from utter humiliation. Seventeen-year-old Lauren Stipp of Woodlands High School won Seventeen magazine and JC Penney's "Rock Your Prom" contest, the grand prize of which included a serenade from the former 98 Degrees singer. Too bad no one bothered to inform Mr. Lachey.

"Nick went to prom yesterday!" Jessica crowed. "There was some contest, and Nick hadn't actually agreed to it. Somebody agreed to it for him and he didn't want to let the girl down, so he went anyway."

Jessica was touring for most of her senior year (she began dating her hubby at age 18, when she was the opening for 98 Degrees), so the pair never made it to the big dance together. But Jessica was no prom virgin.

"I went to prom, like, three years in a row. I had the older guy, yeah-even if I didn't like him, I'd make him like me so I could go!" she exclaimed.

-Noelle Hancock

Sirio and Daniel Make Up

On Monday, May 10, Nina Griscom and James Beard Foundation head Len Pickell hosted a lunch at Le Cirque in honor of the restaurant's owner Sirio Maccioni's new book, Sirio: The Story of My Life and Le Cirque.

Twenty Le Cirque alumni chefs filed into the brightly colored Madison Avenue institution at noon, sitting down together at a long banquette in the red dining room on the first floor for a four-course meal that lasted until late afternoon.

The book's co-author, Bloomberg food critic Peter Elliot, said it was the first time Mr. Maccioni and his former business partner, Daniel Boulud, had reconciled since their feud in 1993, when Mr. Boulud left Le Cirque to start his own restaurant, Daniel. "Everyone was looking at them," said Mr. Elliot of the pair, who sat two seats away from each other at a table with Jacques Torres, Sottha Khunn, Geoffrey Zakarian, Michael Lomonaco, Rick Moonen, Alain Sailhac and Dieter Schorner.

"They were like father and son," said Mr. Elliot.

"They had seen each other in passing before, and everybody in that room had tried to get them to be cordial to each other in the past-and yesterday, it happened," he added in a later interview with The Transom.

Mr. Elliot devoted an entire chapter in the book to Mr. Maccioni and Mr. Boulud's split.

"When Daniel went off to do his own restaurant, to become who he is, it was a very painful split," Mr. Elliot said. "You can't work that intensely with someone for seven years and not be emotional about it. It was very dramatic and painful for both of them-not one more than another. But Sirio's Italian, and he takes it very personally. Sirio was caught off guard. But yesterday, they were really friendly."

At the end of the meal, each guest received a gift bag with a water gun-a reminder, Mr. Elliot said, of the days when kitchen slaves at Le Cirque were deciding whether to shoot Mr. Maccioni or themselves; fake $100 bills that Mr. Elliot said were for overdue pay; and an apron with the words "I Survived Sirio" printed across the front.

"They should be very happy to survive me," Mr. Maccioni quipped. "I survived them."

-A.W.

Tony Randall Remembered

"When you're lucky enough to have a job like mine, every once in a while you get to work with somebody you've admired your whole life," said Rob Burnett, executive producer at The Late Show with David Letterman, the day after actor Tony Randall died at the age of 84. "And for me, Tony was the example of that."

He should know: The comic actor was the rare kind of guy who didn't bat an eye or lose his grip on his own idiosyncratic sense of humor around Mr. Letterman in his more than 100 appearances on the show.

"When he came here he was game for anything, and he made our jobs better," Mr. Burnett said. "He was our go-to guy."

Mr. Randall died on Monday, May 17, from an infection contracted during a hospital stay after heart-bypass surgery performed in December. Most New Yorkers will know him as finicky Felix Unger, the effete neatnik of TV's The Odd Couple, in which he played opposite sloppy sports reporter Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman) as post-divorce roommates.

But to the smart set of Manhattan, Mr. Randall was the eccentric gentleman about town.

"He used to always come in with a hand fan," said Elaine Kaufman of the eponymously famous Elaine's restaurant. "There's no one in New York he didn't know."

Mr. Burnett remembered that around the time of the 25th anniversary of Woodstock, the Letterman show did a gag about the infamous festival that featured Mr. Randall in an unlikely role as a mud-rolling, free-loving hippie.

"He was dressed like an 18-year-old, and we covered him head to toe in mud," said Mr. Burnett. "The look on his face was priceless."

-A.W.

Ms. Sykes, who intends to work on a screenplay (but of course!), will be missed at Vogue , even as colleagues admit that her bodily departure does free up valuable cubic feet in the Condé hive. "She's giving up an office that we desperately need," confessed the magazine's managing editor, Laurie Jones.

What's more, the departure of Ms. Sykes should put to rest any lingering speculation that the tall, pink-cheeked Brit–a frequent boldface name in the gossip columns and the current girlfriend of the oft-shirtless artist Damian Loeb–is Ms. Wintour's next-in-line. "It's sooo not true," sniffed one magazine source.

But, in fairness, that's what Ms. Sykes also said when the question was put to her. "I've never, ever wanted to be an editor," she declared. "I'm not a corporate person; I'm not interested in power. I just want to be a writer."

"To be honest," Ms. Sykes continued, "I really wanted to make the switch because I wanted to work from home. I just wanted to write more articles for Vogue –and one of the ways to do that is to spend less time in meetings."

Ms. Sykes, who has a twin sister named Lucy, was firm about not revealing any details about her screenplay-in-progress. But switching to the home office will also help her avoid the drudgeries of magazine life. "I don't want to write picture captions all day," she said.

So, if Ms. Sykes is not being groomed to enter the inner circle at Vogue , just who is? Over the last year, Ms. Wintour has seen a gaggle of her prized lieutenants exeunt. Former fashion news director Kate Betts, of course, very loudly took the helm at Harper's Bazaar; former features editor Richard David Story now edits American Express' travel magazine Departures ; former associate editor Charles Gandee jumped to Talk as a features editor; and arts editor Michael Boodro left to edit Garden Design.

Worse, some of the efforts to replace the departed editors have been perplexingly short-lived. Eric Banks, editor of Artforum, was brought in as arts editor, but went back to Artforum just a month later. Fashion writer Robin Givhan was recruited away from The Washington Post as an associate editor, and then also promptly went back to her old job. And Michael Solomon, who was editing features on a freelance basis this year, bailed on Nov. 29 to take the editor in chief position at Premiere .

Unable to keep its top talent and hard-pressed to hire loyal newbies, then, it looked like Vogue was going through some dark days. What's more, with Teen Vogue and the Internet hub Style.com up and running and the demands of producing many "outserts" (the thin, advertiser-driven magazines poly-bagged with Vogue ), editors and writers found themselves working longer and harder than the normal 9-to-5 pace.

At the same time, Ms. Wintour–who is reportedly still happily involved with businessman Shelby Bryan–was jet-setting to strange and exotic lands.

"She went to Tennessee to watch Al Gore not win," scoffed a source close to the magazine. "The next day she was in the office saying she didn't get any sleep. She's busy doing a lot of things she didn't used to do in addition to running this empire."

Ms. Jones, the managing editor, insisted that Vogue remains "a well-oiled editorial machine," and said the dark days were never that dark. Still, she admitted: "If anything, it might be fatigue."

Of the exodus of senior features editors, Ms. Jones said, "I was sorry to see Richard Story and the others leave, but they all went on to take good jobs for more money."

"What a lot of people don't realize is that Anna reads every word that goes in the magazine," said one magazine source. "Anna has a really strong literary taste, and what's important to her is to hire somebody with her vision."

And lately, there have been signs of a new, emerging inner circle at Vogue . Sally Singer, the magazine's new fashion news and features director, is said to be very influential at the magazine. An unlikely fashion editor–Ms. Singer, who came from New York magazine, is said to not exactly have a lot of haute couture in her wardrobe–she is considered to have some fashion street smarts. Also on the rise is arts editor Jay Fielden, a former New Yorker associate editor who apparently has Ms. Wintour's ear on issues of culture and politics. "He's kind of a dashing Southern guy," a Vogue observer said. "People suspect that he reminds her of the boyfriend. He's very pleasant."

Ms. Jones told Off the Record that a former Architectural Digest senior editor, Marina Isola, started on Dec. 4 as senior editor. Finally, Eve MacSweeney, a refugee from Harper's Bazaar, will start her job a week before Christmas as an associate editor.

And as this new crew coalesces, Ms. Wintour's reputation as an "ice queen" may be thawing.

"Even when she's in a bad mood, she has a different posture," a Wintour watcher said. "The consensus is that she's so much more mellow and easier to work for because she's probably getting laid."

When the New York Film Critics Circle sits its collective popcorn-enhanced tushie down at Sardi's on Dec. 13 to select its 2000 movie awards, the New York Post' s co-head film critic, Lou Lumenick, will not be in attendance. That's because Mr. Lumenick's application to the Circle was rejected, panned by his peers like John Travolta's performance in Battlefield Earth.

The thumbs-down on Mr. Lumenick represents a notable break with Circle tradition, since the top critic at each of New York's dailies is routinely admitted to the group. But Mr. Lumenick's application for membership was pooh-poohed at the Circle's fall meeting in October–without discussion, sources said, and by a large majority.

Some Circle members said the rejection of Mr. Lumenick reflected a grudging bias against the conservative and tabloid sensibilities of the Post . Though Mr. Lumenick's colleagues Jonathan Foreman and Thelma Adams, formerly of the Post and now at Us Weekly, are members of the Circle, they were initially rejected, too. "I suppose there is a tremendous animosity for that paper for its right-wing politics," said one Circle member.

Others said as well that Mr. Lumenick's rejection was specific to the writer himself. Pauline Kael, Mr. Lumenick is not, they said. "Theoretically, you are voting on the venue and the person," said one Circle critic who voted against Mr. Lumenick. "This was a judgment; I personally think he is bad." The critic added, "I think there are people over at Murdoch's who are sort of dumbing down criticism. He has all these new 21st-century agendas [like] whether a film is family-friendly."

Not everyone agreed with that assessment. Mr. Lumenick had his supporters, like Jack Mathews of the Daily News, who didn't attend the October meeting but said he voted for his competitor by proxy anyway.

"If you have a job reviewing movies full-time for a major outlet, then you should be in," Mr. Mathews said. "When the group begins to assess the quality of film critics, that's a sort of slippery slope."

Mr. Lumenick did not return calls.

This year's Circle chair, David Sterritt of The Christian Science Monitor, declined to comment on the rejection of Mr. Lumenick's membership. But he did allow that, yes, the tradition of the Circle has been for all lead newspaper movie reviewers to be represented. "There have been times when the critic for the Times, News or Post have not been a member," he said. "Of course, as a general practice, the regular critics of the major dailies have been included."

Who knows whether Us Weekly editor Terry McDonell would have begged his executive editor Megan Liberman to stay and not accept a new job at The New York Times Magazine ? He barely got the chance. Ms. Liberman left for vacation (some at Us Weekly thought she was headed for Brazil) on Dec. 1, one day after she gave notice.

"She fled," Mr. McDonell said.

At the Times Magazine, Ms. Liberman will take the post of arts editor, with a pop- culture focus. (What did you think she was going to edit? "On Language"?) She replaces Diane Cardwell, who moved over to the Metro section to be a reporter.

Mr. McDonell said there are no hurt feelings. "We hate to lose her, but it's the kind of job that will allow her to fill out her talents," he said.

Ms. Liberman was a veteran of Us from its good old days as a monthly. Before joining up with the Wenner title, she had spent time with the doomed David Lauren mag, Swing .

Ms. Liberman's new boss, Times Magazine editor Adam Moss, said: "We looked at many candidates who knew their stuff about entertainment and culture, and we tried to find someone with the knowledge, the good story sense and the energy to bring really compelling stories into the magazine." He did not say whether or not he was also looking for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones' wedding photos, too.

We do not know what will be in the February issue of Esquire , but one story you won't be reading is Bush media strategist Mark McKinnon's insider account of the 2000 Presidential campaign.

Somehow, the energetic Mr. McKinnon had penned a full-length feature for Esquire during the endless post-election mess. Word is that Mr. McKinnon's piece is pretty good; apparently, it's a personalized, War Room -style look at the Texas governor's White House bid.

But something strange happened on the way to the newsstand. After it was scheduled for the February issue, Mr. McKinnon's piece was mysteriously scratched from the table of contents at the last minute.

Esquire editor David Granger, who said he is still trying to get the piece into his magazine, didn't want to talk about Mr. McKinnon's piece and why it got bumped.

A left-wing media conspiracy? Perhaps, perhaps not. But there are plenty of good reasons why neither Mr. McKinnon nor Mr. Granger would want the piece to show up in late January.

The first reason is obvious. When Esquire was closing its February issue–right around the time David Boies and Theodore Olson were squaring off in front of the U.S. Supreme Court–it wasn't absolutely certain that George W. Bush would be the next President. And, boy, would it be embarrassing to have a cover line like "How Bush Won the Presidency" hit newsstands right around the time Al Gore was being sworn in.

And then–and more curiously–there is the little matter of a Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into how a videotape of Mr. Bush doing debate prep traveled from Mr. McKinnon's office in Texas to Mr. Gore's debate coach. Mr. McKinnon isn't under investigation in that case, but a woman in his Maverick Media consulting firm is, and we could imagine his lawyers wouldn't be too happy about him writing up the ordeal with a grand jury empaneled. But Mr. McKinnon's lawyer did not return a call seeking comment.

Finally, there is Esquire's "Dubious Achievements" special, which is currently on newsstands. In a classy feature speculating on who President Bush would most likely have "sexual relations" with, the magazine concluded that Mr. Mc-Kinnon is 47 percent more likely to sleep with Dubya than Laura Bush is. Of Mr. McKinnon, in fact, Esquire wrote, "Probably good for a blow job." Nothing like rolling out the welcome wagon for prospective writers.