Rumor Swirl

Jason Leopold of Truthout is reporting, and the Huffington Post repeating, that Karl Rove has been indicted. So far, no newswire has picked up the story. Mark Kleiman throws some cold water on the whole thing here. Count me as extremely skeptical. Meanwhile, Michael Isikoff is reporting that the Fitzgerald investigation is narrowing in on Cheney himself. Andrew Sullivan comments, "I have a feeling that Fitzgerald isn't even close to finishing his work. And if I were Karl Rove, I'd be having a rough weekend." Sounds about right. The Sunday shows might be exceptionally (however unintentionally) good this week.

In related news, Dick Cheney before he dicks you. But you knew that already. At Balkinization, Marty Lederman shows how Cheney's repugnant haecceity is germane to the debate over impeachment:

[T]here are two reasons why Bush remains in office, and neither of them has anything to do with legal and historical testimony of Cass Sunstein and Sean Wilentz. The first is that the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress. The second is that even if the Democrats controlled both houses, impeachment and conviction of the President would only make matters worse -- much, much worse. See the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, section 1.

Marty's first reason --- which could be extended to cover the basic fecklessness of the Democrats and hence the unlikelihood of impeachment even in a Democratic congress --- is basically undeniable. But on the second reason, Marty is ignoring the possibility of impeaching Cheney too.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum nails what's so egregious about the wiretapping policy in general and Cheney in particular: "The programs we got — monitoring of all phone records and eavesdropping on calls into and out of the country without warrants — were actually compromise positions."

UPDATE: Former NSA official Russell Tice: "I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them."