Amidst all this fuss and furor over the leak of a month-old speech by Las Vegas Sands President William Weidner, we've been missing the real story. Or so it seems after a lightbulb belatedly flickered in my noggin last night.

The story isn't what Weidner said. It's who leaked it? And: Why now? The speech was given five weeks ago and its subject -- the presidential election -- is a long-moot point. But the interregnum has been rife with intrigue at Las Vegas Sands, whose corporate proceedings are starting to take on the appearance of a Guelph/Ghibelline throwdown in Olde Venice or what Weidner himself called "a junkyard dog fight."

The immediate outcome was the formation of a committe to mediate between Sheldon Adelson and his underlings, who were experiencing "a loss of confidence" in his dogal leadership. But, in addition to being on the opposite end of a tug of war with Adelson, Weidner also called for "more financial brainpower," which cannot have sat well with his aging boss, who has shown more than a little entrepreneurial brilliance in his lifetime.

If Weidner and Adelson are, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, at daggers drawn, it might explain how a copy of Weidner's Anti-Defamation League speech found its way into pundit-at-large Jon Ralston's mailbox. Perhaps a pro-Adelson faction leaked it. Ralston regularly tweaks Adelson as "Gondolier Numero Uno" ... but if Adelson wanted to slip a shiv between the ribs of his in-house rival, Weidner, what better way of delivering the knife thrust than via Ralston, who has print, TV and Internet at his command and who's to go-to guy for political commentary on all things Nevadan?

Even on paper, the Weidner speech comes across as an angry, even inflammatory screed and it has the potential to seriously damage Weidner's chances of emerging as the post-Adelson public face of Las Vegas Sands. One of the Adelson's coveted markets is his home state of Massachusetts. Its governor, Deval Patrick, is a close friend of President-elect Barack Obama. How kindly will Patrick look upon receiving as emissary an Adelson lieutenant who subtly (and not so subtly) sought to draw links between the rise of Obama and that of Nazism? Weidner is now radioactive in the Bay State -- and possibly elsewhere, assuming Sands continues to pull out of its nosedive.

Weidner has done the seemingly impossible: Make Adelson look cuddly and reasonable by comparison. Which is why I don't think a speech mostly consisting of Internet cut-and-pastes and sweeping generalizations made its way into Ralston's hands by happenstance.

A few other, more innocuous possibilities suggest themselves. If the speech was simply meant to be read aloud, why is it replete with 24 (sometimes errant) footnotes? Perhaps, given the dimensions of Weidner's ego, he had it printed for dissemination to legions of like-minded fanboys.

Or maybe he intended to have it published somewhere. Except for local vanity press Liberty Watch, I can't think of a conservative magazine desperate enough to print a piece so emotive and lacking in intellectual rigor, something the Weekly Standard or National Review would spike without a moment's hesitation. I used to edit Chuck Muth's columns for the Las Vegas Business Press. A Muth fan I am not but, both as a historian and polemicist, Weidner isn't fit to carry Muth's laptop.

Back into the dark ages. Just when Las Vegas was pulling itself out of its 'cultural wasteland' status, comes a recession to knock us several years backward. The loss of Libby Lumpkin is particularly regrettable. For instance, she recently coaxed casino executives like Fontainebleau's Glenn Schaeffer and MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren to lend parts of their art collections to the Las Vegas Art Museum. The result was a stimulating display of contemporary art. Frank Fertitta III likes to collect images of money, while younger brother Lorenzo's darker, more eclectic taste suggests that he's kind of messed-up ... but in a good way.