“I have thought from the beginning that this case was a ticking time bomb,” writes MARK (in Mark A. R. Kleiman: Valerie Plame: A chat with the Prez):
Having interviewed Dick Cheney some time ago, yesterday Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor working on the Valerie Plame affair, spent an hour and ten minutes with the President and the private counsel the President has retained. The President wasn’t under oath, but lying to a prosecutor would still be a crime (ask Martha Stewart).
…
Fitzgerald’s success in keeping the lid on the grand jury testimony has generated a drought of stories on the case, which in turn has created the impression that it’s gone away.
Don’t bet on it….
I think appointing Fitzgerald was Bush / Cheney / Rove’s Archibald Cox moment. You have to admire those Fitzgeralds – those Norman Welsh Saxon Viking more-Irish-than-the-Irish lord lieutenants – and their rebellious pride and integrity.
(And we’ve heard the jokes about Gerald Fitzpatrick “so save it”.)