In the ninth through eleventh grafs of their article today in The Washington Post, Dana Milbank and Carol D. Leonnig report that despite claims by some that Karl Rove has been exonerated, George W. Bush's key staffer is still under investigation.

But two legal sources intimately familiar with Fitzgerald's tactics in this inquiry said they believe Rove remains in significant danger. They described Fitzgerald as being relentlessly thorough but also conservative throughout this prosecution -- and his willingness to consider Rove's eleventh-hour pleading of a memory lapse is merely a sign of Fitzgerald's caution.

The two legal sources point to what they consider Fitzgerald's careful decision not to charge Libby with the leak of a covert agent's identity, given that the prosecutor had amassed considerable evidence that Libby gave classified information, which he knew from his job should not be made public, to reporters. Another prosecutor might have stretched to make a leak charge, on the theory that a jury would believe, based on other actions, that Libby acted with bad intentions.

Another warning sign for Rove was in the phrasing of Friday's indictment of Libby. Fitzgerald referred to Rove in those charging papers as a senior White House official and dubbed him "Official A." In prosecutorial parlance, this kind of awkward pseudonym is often used for individuals who have not been indicted in a case but still face a significant chance of being charged. No other official in the investigation carries such an identifier.

With the nomination of supreme conservative Samuel Alito, President Bush has attempted to shift the focus away from the many scandals plaguing both his administration and the Republican Party as a whole. Although some Democrats -- particularly those on the left fringe -- will embrace this change of debate (because they do want Americans to line up over Roe), they would be unwise to stop hammering away at Republican ethical woes.