Cheney may need to hide in his undisclosed location for a while longer

The Washington Post has a bit of an expose this Sunday concerning Cheney's role in Plamegate. Apparently Patrick Fitzgerald had Libby's private notes long before they ever began talking to him, and as every realist had already surmised, it's a more than a bit of a stretch to think that Libby could have been up to those sorts of shenanigans without his Dark Lord's knowledge and approval.

To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, "Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself."

The problem with this situation, of course, is a lack of proof as long as all of the suspects involved hold fast to their stories. If nobody cracks, they can keep right on lying with a straight face and blame the whole thing on Libby and, if needed, Rove. Did Bush and Cheney have full knowledge of this plot and, most likely, involvement in it? Obviously. Nothing that risky would have been undertaken by a couple of minions without checking in with the bosses first. But if they stick to their stories and take the fall, it looks impossible to prove.

But will they hold to the party line? There is already a buzz that the judge in the Libby case may be leaning towards a particularly harsh sentence for Scooter. If Bush pardons him, it will be a political disaster for the administration and the Republican party, so that option may not be on the table. Facing the possibility of spending a significant portion of the rest of his life in the slammer, will Scooter give up the big fish? Either way it goes, the culture of corruption which has characterized this administration is slowly but surely coming back to bite them in the rear.