Newsweek's Cover screams, "Cheney's Man," with the Vice President in the foreground, and Libby in the background.
And if this comes down to a battle between Rove and Cheney, the article paints a grim picture for those who have put their money on the Vice President:
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Bush said to his aides, "is a very serious guy." And so was the charge he laid out: that I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the vice president's right-hand man, had lied repeatedly under oath about what might well have been a White House effort to vindictively tip reporters about the identity of a CIA agent whose husband was a critic of the Iraq war. Libby has denied wrongdoing, and his lawyer vowed a vigorous defense. But Bush, an aide indicated, was as impressed by Fitzgerald's case as by the man who brought it. "The indictment speaks for itself," said the aide, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the situation.
As he prosecutes "Cheney's Cheney" for perjury, false statements and obstruction, Fitzgerald will inevitably have to shine a light on the machinery that sold the Iraq war and that sought to discredit critics of it, particularly Joseph Wilson. And that, in turn, could lead to Cheney and to the Cheney-run effort to make Iraq the central battleground in the war on terror.
[O]nce again, the hoary "Howard Baker Questions" are being asked: what did he know and when did he know it? This time, however, the target isn't the president, protected for now by his reputation as a rigorous delegator, but Cheney, viewed as the most powerful vice president in modern times.
Perhaps it's no surprise, therefore, that at least some administration officials--speaking on background, of course--have begun retroactively to dismiss Cheney's role. Even if they are rewriting history, the revision is politically significant--and an ominous sign for Cheney in a city where power is the appearance of power. . . .
Ensconced at Camp David in sunny, crisp weather, [Bush] sifted his options. Cheney doesn't go up there often. Last weekend was no exception.
As for Rove?
Fitzgerald also made news for what he didn't do--and for whom he didn't propose to try to hang. . . . Nor, as of last Friday, had Fitzgerald decided whether to indict Karl Rove, the top presidential aide and close friend, who also talked to journalists about Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. . . . As for Rove, the aide said, some insiders believed that he had "behaved, if not criminally, then certainly unethically."
If I were Cheney's lawyer, I'd be worried about the following Rove plan: Accept blame for "unethical behavior," while allowing Cheney and Libby to take the bullet for "criminal behavior."