Fitzy Watch

So wazzup with that Fitgerald Enquiry anyway? Think Progress suggests that these two graphs from the Washington Post seem to be a plausible explanation of what’s going on:

Randall Eliason, the former chief of public integrity prosecution at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, and another former prosecutor, David Schertler, speculated that Fitzgerald would not have considered charging Rove unless he had significant evidence from other witnesses that Rove mentioned the Cooper conversation to them. Now the prosecutor must check out the Novak conversation and weigh it against his other evidence.

“If you’re going to bring charges against the White House deputy chief of staff, you want to be absolutely convinced it was an intentional lie,” Schertler said. “I think Fitzgerald is looking at this so at the end of the day he can say, ‘I explored everything.’”

David Corn says Rove's lawyer, Luskin, was a longtime source of Viveca Novak, not a close friend (as has been wrongly reported). It looks like Rove is trying to use an old conversation between Luskin and Novak as a way of creating an argument for plausible doubt. For now, he is also successfully muddying the waters, diluting pubic interest as the story grows too complex for many observers. Will it work?