Holy crap. Valleywag is on fire.

First they broke the story about Microsoft pumping money into high-integrity “spokesbloggers” like Om Malik. Now they’ve nailed a scoop about Fortune magazine going after us. See here. They found out somehow that Fortune magazine has ordered up a hit job on me from Peter Elkind, the guy who did the Enron stuff for them. They’ve found out also that we’re blackballing Fortune and not letting them have an early review unit of the iPhone. They even describe me as “still an inveterate control freak” and basically describe me as a huge son of a bitch who takes out personal vendettas against journalists who cross me. You know what? It’s all true. You don’t mess with Steve. Forget what you’ve heard about me getting soft now that I’m in my fifties. I haven’t ripened and mellowed. I haven’t matured. You frig with El Jobso and I will rip your friggin lungs out. That’s a promise.

Here’s something Valleywag doesn’t know, because even Fortune doesn’t know it. We’ve seen a draft of the Elkind story. Not going to tell you how, but we have. Let’s just say we still have some friends on the staff at Fortune, and leave it at that. And we’re ready to knock down the Elkind story point by point. It’s an ugly story, and we’re going to have to be even uglier to refute it, but we’re going to do what we have to do. Just warning you, Peter.

To Nick Denton of Valleywag fame: Well done. Or molodets, as we say in Krasnodar. Namaste. I honor the place where you and I become one.