Man this is really getting interesting

To speculate about.

One thing that makes Peter Fitzgerald (or is it Gerald Fitzpatrick?) so much different than Ken Starr is that (1) the guy is a career prosecutor; and (2) he and his office keep their mouths shut. Starr's office was a goddamn sieve of leaks, while I don't think one leak has ever come from Fitzgerald's office.

That is how it should be done of course, but it also means that the only way we know what the hell is happening are from actual pleadings in his investigation of the Plame outing. Everyone of us, me included are speculating out of our asses, usually from our own political viewpoint. However, it is starting to appear that our Karl Rove arrest dreams are coming true, but it may be more than that, we may have a conspiracy on our hands.

A conspiracy that includes Judy, Queen of all Iraq, Miller.

In unusually blunt language, Fitzgerald told Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan that Cooper and Miller pretend that journalists have a broader right to protect confidential sources than lawyers, presidents and law enforcement officers.

"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality -- no one in America is," he wrote.

Fitzgerald's arguments set the stage for a historic showdown in federal court between the government and the news media this afternoon, when Hogan could order the two reporters confined for defying his October order to cooperate in the grand jury investigation...

...In his filings yesterday, Fitzgerald used strong language to complain about the reporters' professed goal of protecting their sources. It would be "pointless" for Cooper to go to jail, he said, because Time effectively identified the source whom Fitzgerald is interested in when it turned over Cooper's notes and e-mails. Cooper's source has also waived Cooper's promise of confidentiality.

Likewise, Fitzgerald has repeatedly said he already knows the identity of Miller's source and that person has relieved Miller of her duty to protect the source's anonymity. Yesterday, he suggested Miller will likely spend time in jail thinking about "whether the interests of journalism at large, and even more broadly, the proper conduct of government, are truly served" by her continued refusal to discuss her sources.

"Miller's views may change over time," he said, if her "irresponsible martyrdom" is later viewed by her industry colleagues as hurting, rather than helping, reporters' efforts to protect their sources, he wrote.

This last section is, well, delicious. Could Judy Miller be the actual tool of the White House in exposing the real occupation of Valerie Plame -- is she now hiding behind the First Amendment to protect her own criminal activity? Who has committed perjury. Rove? Scooter? Will Miller herself be charged?

Oh, and one thing that I think we can all agree on, Cooper will not do well in jail.