“Nope.”
That’s all it took for The Loop‘s Jim Dalrymple to quash the rumor, first floated between parentheses Monday by Re/Code‘s Kara Swisher, that former White House press secretary Jay Carney’s name was being bandied about for the top PR job at Apple.
Dalrymple’s Apple sources, although unnamed, are so good that his “nope”s are considered to be the last word on such things. On Apple rumors ranging from product releases to high-level personnel changes, he’s never been wrong.
According to Dalrymple, Carney was never in the running to replace Katie Cotton, who stepped down in May after 18 years at Apple, most of them working directly for Steve Jobs.
“Tim Cook,” Dalrymple wrote, “has never even met Jay Carney.”
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe (free!) via his RSS feed.
