Today’s buzz is that Patrick Fitzgerald is looking into Dick Cheney’s role in the Valerie Plame leak. Bloomberg reports:

The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush’s administration about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent’s husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according to the people.

Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney’s communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president’s knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation. …

… One lawyer intimately involved in the case, who like the others demanded anonymity, said one reason Fitzgerald was willing to send Miller to jail to compel testimony was because he was pursuing evidence the vice president may have been aware of the specifics of the anti-Wilson strategy.

And both U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan and an appellate-court panel — including David Tatel, a First Amendment advocate — said they ruled in Fitzgerald’s favor because of the gravity of the case.

Another juicy bit:

Fitzgerald has told lawyers involved in the case that he hopes to conclude soon — the grand jury’s term expires Oct. 28, although it could be extended — and there is a growing sense among knowledgeable observers that the outcome will involve serious criminal charges. “Fitzgerald is putting together a big case,” Washington attorney Robert Bennett, who represents Miller, said on the ABC-TV program “This Week” yesterday.

World o’ Crap poses a serious constitutional question:

So, if Bush gets impeached for incompetence, Cheney resigns because he’s implicated in a conspiracy that ended up outing a CIA agent, and DeLay has stepped down as Speaker of the House House Majority Leader because of an ongoing corruption investigation, then who becomes the President? (And doesn’t the Constitution specify that, per the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” clause, that this would mean that the party in charge has to retire from the field?)

Maybe we could outsource the federal government?

Meanwhile, Kevin Drum examines a possible John Bolton connection.