Gina Chon, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was forced to resign after emails were leaked showing that she was romantically involved with a Bush Administration official while covering the war in Iraq, defended herself today in an email sent to friends and colleagues.

The Wall Street Journal announced today that reporter Gina Chon, who was revealed by recently leaked emails to have slept with a National Security Council Iraq expert while covering that country, has resigned.

"You can't fuck the elephants while you're covering the circus" is an old journalistic maxim—often attributed to the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee the New York Times' Abe Rosenthal—delineating the boundaries of appropriate reporter-source relationships. Sleep with whomever you want, in other words, with the exception of the people you write about. If recently released email exchanges between the Wall Street Journal's Gina Chon and a former National Security Council official turn out to be as real as they seem, then it looks like Chon fucked a big ol' elephant.