"If you got a strong sense of dèja vu when reading Michael Isikoff's "The Qatari Connection" in this week's Newsweek, it may be because you read Wayne Barrett's "Rudy's Ties to a Terror Sheik" in last week's Voice," reads an annoyed post up this morning on the Voice's daily blog.

New York magazine's Daily Intel is criticizing Isikoff for using quotes similar to those in Barrett's story; in particular, the Voice says, comments made by former CIA agent Robert Baer. Over at the Observer, newly-minted media editor Zach Roth asked Isikoff what the deal was. "The truth is I was aware of, and done reporting on all this, before the Village Voice piece," Isikoff replied in an email. "No intention to slight Wayne Barrett who was generously credited in our cover story on Rudy last week."

We rang Barrett up today to find out how slighted he actually felt. As it turns out, the answer is not at all, which is somewhat surprising in and of itself: In March, Barrett spent several hours speaking to Newsweek for a cover story on Giuliani and was furious when the piece mentioned the discussion only in passing.

"I don't have any quarrel with what Isikoff did," Barrett told us. "I've never spoken to the man in my life, and he's a fine journalist. If he says he was working on the story, then I accept it. He advanced the story, and that's the name of the game." Putting aside competition for the sake of the bigger picture? What means this?

"News stories are building blocks; I didn't invent this story," Barrett said. "I think I added greatly to it. That's what happened with news stories, people build on them."

As for the Baer quotes used in Isikoff's story, they actually bear more resemblance to a Thursday ABC.com blog post, written by Marcus Baram, who at one point interned for Barrett at the Voice. Baer is a consultant for ABC News, which pretty much rounds out this little media nexus.

In other Giuliani news, Vanity Fair's investigative piece (Disclosure: written by my brother) is online.

Earlier: 'Voice' And 'Vanity Fair' Are Tag Teaming Rudy Giuliani

In both June and September, Vanity Fair ran pieces detailing, respectively, Rudy's nutty nature and how everyone hates his wife. VF is set to roll out another story on the Republican frontrunner in January (In the interest of full disclosure, said piece was written by my brother, Michael Shnayerson. Who also has a book coming out in January!)

Back in May, when Barrett wrote a story about some murkiness surrounding Giuliani's acceptance of four diamond World Series Yankees rings, Giuliani flipped his shit just a little. "I really would caution you that in the case of that particular reporter, he's got such an obsession that he just about never gets his facts right," Giuliani said of Barrett in response to campaign trail questions about the story. "This reporter sticks pins in a doll of me every night."

Well probably not actually, but Barrett definitely does have a hard-on for the man; the Voice's veteran staff reporter has devoted two books and 22 less-than-admiring stories on Giuliani since 9/11. No word yet as to whether The Weekly Standard or The American Spectator have any comeback pieces up their sleeves.