Wow...[updated]
Maybe only an outbreak of the bird flu could help Bush deflect from this possible knockout punch:

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

And there's more...

Mr. Fitzgerald's pursuit now suggests he might be investigating not a narrow case on the leaking of the agent's name, but perhaps a broader conspiracy. . . . Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion.

Usually these big promises turn out to be duds...so I'm trying not to get hopeful. But, might there actually be a principled prosecutor who is finally willing to see abuses of power where our politics as usual used to be? And call the powerful on it? If Cheney is shown to have broken laws in this conspiracy, we may have the first VP resignation since Agnew, and if Fitzgerald can prove a wide-spread criminal Administration conspiracy to mislead the American people into war...well I can't even say it. (Darn I was trying not to get hopeful.)

Not bad news for a hump day.

[UPDATE: Kevin Drum rightly points out that the anticipated WSJ article today did not in fact contain a single reference to Cheney, negating, he says, the Huffington Post's hype. My wishful thinking would reply that the Huffington teaser only said they were "working on" such a story, not that it would be out today. They could indeed still be working on it. This grand jury is going to have legs until fitzgerald makes announcements one way or another.]