This week, former White House council John Dean reported that Deep Throat is ailing and that Ben Bradlee had already prepared an obituary. Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher takes one last stab at just who Deep Throat really is.

Here at E&P, we thought we'd join in the fun, since Deep Throat, whoever or whatever it is, is the most famous journalistic source in history. Send us your pick for the most likely candidate (to: letters@editorandpublisher.com), and we will tabulate the results. We will also award a free subscription to whoever is first to submit the correct name -- assuming, that is, we ever learn who he/she/it is.

In the early returns, based on dozens of submissions, the clear frontrunner is (ailing) Chief Justice Willam [sp] Rehnquist. Mark Felt holds second, and (ailing) President Ford is in third. Other interesting picks include: Ben Stein, Bill Casey, Leonard Garment, Henry Kissinger, G. Gordon Liddy, Earl Silbert, Steven Bull, Fred Fielding's secretary, and Richard M. Nixon himself ("he was so self-destructive").

The other names they bring up: Pat Buchanan, George H.W. Bush, and others, "including Fred Fielding, John Sears, L. Patrick Gray (the original front runner), Leonard Garment, William Safire, Dwight Chapin, Ray Price, Alexander Haig, David Gergen, Mark Felt, Lowell Weicker, and the ever popular No One (he was a Woodward-Bernstein composite)."