On Monday, a federal judge found Time reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt of court for refusing to testify in the investigation of the outing of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame. The whole thing is just a big messy-mess of ethics and whatnot — so if you want something that'll make people's eyes glaze over at cocktail parties, we'll gladly walk you through the important stuff after the jump.

"Operative"? Outing? What?
 Secret agents evidently aren't just for movies! Our government has lots of employees running around in Ray-Bans and trench coats doing, you know, secret things.

Why would someone out an agent? Who outed her? Why would anyone care?
 It's old news, but it's still important: Valerie Plame's husband is Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of President W's foreign policy. She was outed by columnist Robert Novak, who questioned Wilson's Iraq-WMD investigations in a faraway (or possibly made-up?) land called Niger. How did Novak get his info? That's the issue that has the courts in a tizzy.

Wait! That sounds all political and boring!
 From the political angle, of course it's boring. But Meet The Press host Tim Russert and Matthew Cooper were subpoenaed to talk about their discussions with a certain executive branch member in connection with the leak, and Cooper has refused to comply for fear of compromising his sources. So very Deep Throat! Now he's being held in contempt of court.

So, like, what's going to happen?
 Right now Cooper is looking at possible jail time, which would make him the most bad-ass loyal journalist ever. Or a total moron, especially if his discussions with a certain executive branch member were with someone really, um, important. That's the sort of thing that could influence an election. We hear one of those is coming soon. Furthermore, we're talking issues of the First Amendment — if Cooper goes down, is that whole "freedom of the press" thing null and void?

This makes our head spin.
 Yeah, us too. Real journalism? Politics? Ack.

Reporter Held In Contempt Of Court In CIA Leaks Case [PBS NewsHour]
CIA Leak Could Have Free-Press Ripples [USA Today]