All the Prosecutor's Hints

In a none-too-subtle attempt to change the subject first thing this morning, President Bush summoned the press to the White House and named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Coverage of a divisive nomination fight -- with Bush's right flank solidly behind him this time -- is much more to the White House's liking than all that nattering about the president's seemingly doomed second term in general, and the indictment of former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby in particular.

But Friday's announcement of Libby's indictment on five felony counts for intentionally obstructing the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity is not the end of that story.

And the press, while blithely chasing another scent this morning, will be back in the hunt soon enough. If nothing else, Libby's public arraignment should bring out the media hordes. (Mark your calendars: it will be Thursday morning at 10:30 before Judge Reggie B. Walton in Courtroom 5 of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse.)

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may yet have some more indictments in store for us. But even if he doesn't, the information he released on Friday -- which initially struck many media observers as maddeningly short on details -- is in fact a still largely unmined treasure trove of hints about potentially serious ethical missteps by all sorts of senior Bush officials.

Just because a lot of the things Fitzgerald discovered evidently fell short of his very conservative prosecutorial standards -- they weren't out-and-out, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt crimes -- doesn't mean they were up to the standards the public reasonably expects from its White House.

"I know that people want to know whatever it is that we know, and they're probably sitting at home with TVs thinking, 'I want to jump through the TV, grab him by his collar and tell him to tell us everything they've figured out over the last two years,' " Fitzgerald said at his long-awaited Friday news conference.

Include me in.

But consider the constraints Fitzgerald was working under, and take a closer look at the news conference transcript and the indictment .

There is plenty of reason to believe that Fitzgerald has discovered evidence that Libby leaked Plame's name; that Karl Rove did the same; that Vice President Cheney's role was central to the drama; and that there was a lot more loose talk at the White House than anyone had imagined. Fitzgerald just isn't 100 percent sure that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any other crimes took place. And grand jury secrecy rules forbid him from disclosing anything that isn't directly related to the filed charges.

Nevertheless, he sure doled out a lot of hints. One of the most intriguing, of course, involves "Official A" -- who several sources have identified as none other than Rove himself.

According to the indictment: "On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House ('Official A') who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson's wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson's trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson's wife."