Fitzgerald: A Miss Piggy Enthusiast

I'm sure some were disappointed with Fitzgerald's News Conference. After all, the major charges were for perjury in the process of the investigation.

Read closer: what Fitzgerald is doing is following a dictum succinctly annunciated by Miss Piggy: "Never eat more in one sitting than you can lift."

We don't know what Fitzgerald has on Rove, on Cheney. He didn't even get Libby on the main point of his investigation -- knowingly revealing classiified secrets. But if you read the indictment, what becomes clear is that, if he's able to prosecute Libby under these charges, he will have prima facie convicted him on the knowingly revealing classified secrets as well.

So then you might ask -- why doesn't he just go after the whole group. And here is where a combination of wishful thinking (mine) and wry poker-manship will come in: Fitzgerald is a single little man in the employ of the DOJ, and They are the White House. If he came out with indictments for 4/5 of the White House, they'd have him on the end of a hot pitchfork, dangling him above the howling coulters.

So what has he done -- something which looks almost silly: he's indicted someone who appears to be key, but small enough fish to appear politically important -- a sacraficial lamb, if you will, that Rove can wave bye-bye to as a casualty of political war -- who can be fully prosecuted. And, in the process, everything we the public might want to know, will be revealed by the prosecuters of that case, in the public courtroom.

Which is a much heavier eater than Mr. Fitzgerald. And that's where Rove and Cheney can find themselves on someone else's pitchfork.