Farhi accepted Prestowitz's word and called Fareed for comment.

Farhi's story has been widely repeated, reposted, and discussed, doing great damage to Fareed Zakaria's reputation.

I asked Farhi whether he had done anything to verify Prestowitz's complaint of quote-stealing by Zakaria.

We agreed that the conversation would be off-the-record, so I won't quote Farhi's answer.