Kevin Stahl

As a teenager, Kevin left George Washington University well shy of a political science degree to start his reporting career working for muckraker Jack Anderson. And he's been ruffling official feathers since the Clinton Whitewater imbroglio, when his stories on Salon.com took a prodigious swing at dismantling special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's $40 million investigation. Washington investigative journalist Murray Waas has been around awhile.

Yet the slightly disheveled Philly native has always managed to remain well under the public's radar – refusing to appear on television, toiling independently as a freelancer until recently joining National Journal, and always working the phones and a network of sources to learn more about how the U.S. went to war with Iraq.

But his cover's been blown. With the publication in recent months of his news-breaking stories on the Bush administration's involvement in manipulating prewar Iraq intelligence – particularly its attempt to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and to out his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame – Waas has gotten a sometimes bitter taste of what he refers to as his "five minutes of fame."