When Bush got his lap dog in as AG, he must have known that he would need a lot of cover in his second term, not just on Abu Ghraib and the rest of the abuses that came out of the Iraq war, but mainly for the Plame case. He already refused to be deposed under oath about the affair, then got himself a private lawyer. Shrub may be mean, ignorant, and the rest, but he is politically shrewd.
Which gets us to the Nixon option. I can't see how the noose that is tightening around his Turd Blossom wont catch he and his Dick up in it too. So, when will he get Gonsales to go out there and fire Fitzgerald? It seems to me that they are getting towards their end game and this has to be the last card, and the biggest, they have got left to play.
Here's what would be Rove's rationale behind doing this. Hang together until 2006, and we will create enough diversions (war with Iran) and plausible deniabilities (that mammoth Religious Right Voting Block) that we can steal another election and save ourselves from impeachment.
Lots of holes in this, but it explains the bunker mentality they have taken up, and when Fitzgerald comes knocking, well, off with his head and we'll live with the fallout. But the investigation is ended. On his new MSNBC show, Bow-tie boy was already calling for an end to the independent prosecutors's law, cuz its all just full of partisanship and look what they did to Clinton. What a creep!