Dick Cheney: Ham Sandwich?

Last week, in discussing Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of Scooter and the rest of the Gang that Couldn't Testify Straight, Wonkette wrote,

"We hear Cheney . . . . We hear "Watergate-esque." We hear 'perjury.'“

I gasped when I saw it -- I couldn't imagine that Cheney would leave his fingerprints on this mess. Libby? Sure (he signs his letters "Scooter," after all). Rove? Maybe. But Cheney? Does he even have fingerprints?

Today, I learn via Tom Watson that Judy Miller's first-person love note to herself in the New York Times contains this nugget:

"Before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me questions about Mr. Cheney. He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them.”

Mr. Watson then points us to the AP story, which nails this point in its lead paragraph:

"The prosecutor in the CIA leak probe repeatedly asked New York Times reporter Judith Miller how Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff handled classified information in their discussions, and asked whether Cheney knew of their conversations.”

I'm sorry to repeat myself, but . . . wowsa. How about this for a crackpot unified theory of Plame-Miers: If George Bush and Andy Card knew that Prosecutor Fitzgerald was sniffing around not only the Office of the Vice President but the Vice President himself, then maybe the President and Card (sans Bush's Brain and the Dark Prince) saw the potential for a weakened Bush to limp into a Supreme Court nomination battle without the firepower to overcome a Democrat filibuster to an Edith Jones or Priscilla Owen nomination, which prompted Bush's choice of the Harry Reid pre-approved Harriet Miers. (Under this theory, Mickey Kaus would be right that Reid's potential change of position from supporting to opposing Miers would be a "double-cross." I'm still wondering, however, if, Plame-gate aside, Bush might like to see a Reid reversal on Miers to help him attempt to change the nomination paradigm and line up the Republicans in a partisan battle.)

(Don't worry -- I'm not going to try to wrap DeLay and Frist into this discussion . . . yet.)