The hot bombshell of the day, Rolling Stone's interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- in which he criticizes President Obama -- found a strange route to daylight for a print story.

Yahoo News reveals Rolling Stone leaked the story to Associated Press, which sparked a wave of coverage on Web outlets since Monday. Rolling Stone finally posted the article online today.

“The Associated Press got things going Monday afternoon, in a short piece about McChrystal's frustration with U.S. envoy Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, but didn't go into all the gory details that would later surface," Yahoo News explains. “NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell quickly tweeted the AP's news. She wrote: 'Rolling Stone quotes Gen McChrystal says Amb(ret Gen) Eikenberry 'betrayed' him with leaked memo last yr doubting Karzai story is out fri.'

“Clearly, competitors can't wait until Friday to pick up a copy, especially when McChrystal has already been summoned to the White House. Neschis said that other news organizations requested a copy, and published more details from the magazine article. However, Neschis said that he did not provide a copy to Politico or Time magazine's political writer Mark Halperin--both of whom published the entire story on Tuesday."