Slate's respected political reporter John Dickerson pulled the ultimate idiot email move this week: Instead of emailing a note to its intended recipient – he needed a "stupid but important question" answered from Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor – he emailed an entire slew of reporters. We hope he's kidding when he says "all 8,600" of you.

All Dickerson needed to know was this: "Was axelrod at chicago hq when he did conf call yesterday? it's a scene lede for my piece….." It turned into yesterday's lede: "When Barack Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, spoke to reporters on a conference call Wednesday, you could hear a siren in the background. It was just the usual city sounds outside of his Chicago office, but it matched the emergency tone of the call."

How did the email mixup happen? It's unclear, and lucky for Dickerson, the email was an innocuous one. But as Eli Lily's attorneys know all too well, many of them are not.

Apology email after the jump.

From: John Dickerson
Date: Thu, Mar 6, 2008
Subject: not just stupid questions but stupid emailing
To: Tommy Vietor, Daily Reporters

Sorry colleagues. I somehow emailed God and country with that question about where Axelrod was sitting. For my next act I shall ask all 8,600 of you what he had for breakfast and his preference in hatwear. Sorry about these mass emails. No more need to respond unless it's to call Howard Kurtz to give him more evidence that one of us has gone quietly mad.