On the Fitzgerald strategy:
"As Billmon noted, there is reason to believe that Fitzgerald had enough evidence to go after Libby under the Identities Protection Act. Why didn't he? Especially since the one time Fitzgerald stepped beyond his role as Special Counsel to editorialize was when he underscored the damage that had been done to the intelligence community by the outing of Plame. This guy probably hugs the Patriot Act in his sleep. He is a total law'n'order true believer. He would not pull his punches on that front, and has in the past been extremely aggressive -- some would say draconian -- in protecting what he saw as threats to the national security.
As it stands now, Fitzgerald has Libby on 30 years worth of counts and he's got him cold. No wiggle room. Libby may not do 30 years, but he ain't doing 6 months. Scooter's screwed. It was the Vice President's boon companion himself, David Gergen, who said on MSNBC today that this is squeeze time. John Dean reiterated it later on. It really matters little to a man of 55 whether he is looking at 30 years or 60 -- he'd rather have 60 thrown at him if some of them were shaky and he thought he could use the wobbly ones to get out of the rest.
There is no wobble in the indictments handed down today. It's pretty clear. Libby can cut a deal with Fitzgerald or swing."
"In the Libby indictment most individuals who are cited as witnesses are indicated by their job title -- Assistant to the Vice President for Public Affairs, Under Secretary of State, White House Press Secretary (guess that explains where Ari Fleischer's been in all this, he's a cooperating witness). The exception is the anonymous "Official A," who purportedly spoke with Robert Novak in the week prior to July 11, 2003 (p. 8, pp 21). That's a distinction you would make if you were still investigating someone and you did not want to prejudice that investigation. AP is reporting that three people have now identified "Official A" as Karl Rove."
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