(NOT) INVESTIGATING HIMSELF. David Corn and Jeff Goldberg have a fascinating piece on the Nation's website about a heretofore unknown bit of lore about Deep Throat: at one point, as the Watergate scandal was unraveling, Mark Felt was put in charge of finding out who was leaking to the Washington Post. Well, now.

Check out this memo, quoted by Corn and Goldberg, that Felt wrote to a subordinate:

As you know, Woodward and Bernstein have written numerous articles about Watergate. While their stories have contained much fiction and half truths, they have frequently set forth information which they attribute to Federal investigators, Department of Justice sources, and FBI sources. We know that they were playing games with the case agent in the Washington Field Office trying to trick him into giving them bits of information. On balance and despite the fiction, there is no question that they have access to sources either in the FBI or in the Department of Justice.

This is smoke-blowing of the highest order. No wonder Felt's secret stayed safe for more than three decades.

ARTS ONLINE. Joel Brown, formerly the chief arts editor at the Boston Herald, has put together a terrific new resource: HubArts.com, which he bills as "One-stop shopping for news & comment on Boston arts and culture."

Brown combines original content with bloggier fare linking to other news sites (especially the Herald's, but plenty of others as well). He's got links to a bunch of Boston-area arts organizations. And the layout is clean and attractive. What more do you want?