Libby indictment a body blow to a struggling White House

Ms. Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, had published a newspaper column on July 6, 2003, describing a trip to Niger he had taken at the behest of the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had tried to purchase uranium, presumably to make nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson accused the Bush administration of 'twisting" intelligence to justify invading Iraq. But even before Wilson's column appeared, Libby had begun to research the former diplomat's trip and discuss the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Libby's motive in discussing this information with journalists remains a matter of speculation.

The Libby indictment registered high on the political Richter scale. Washington over the years has had its share of indictments, but rarely of someone this close to the Oval Office. To refer to him as just the vice president's chief of staff understates his power. He was the closest aide to the most powerful vice president in history, a neocon stalwart who helped shape US foreign policy and pushed for the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

In a statement Friday, Mr. Cheney called Libby "one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known."

The Libby indictment capped what had to be one the worst weeks of Bush's presidency, despite some bright spots. Bush's nomination of a new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, was well-received, but quickly overtaken by the next bit of bad news. The crossing of the symbolic threshold of 2,000 American deaths in Iraq sparked a wave of coverage of the toll the Iraq war has taken, even as a final tally also showed the passage of the new Iraqi Constitution. On Thursday, Bush's embattled Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, withdrew from her nomination as conservative opposition to her was beginning to solidify. And then on Friday came the long-dreaded indictment. The timing of the Miers withdrawal was seen as no accident: It allowed the fractured Republican coalition to reunite just in time to rally behind their besieged president.

Bush is expected to announce his next high court nominee soon, an event that will create another news point far from Libby. If he makes a choice that satisfies his conservative base but does not inflame the left, he can show the political world he's back on his game - but analysts are hard put to identify such a candidate.

Still, Libby's legal woes are sure to remain in the news for months to come - probably right up to the 2006 midterms, an uncomfortable political fact for Republicans seeking election or reelection.

Many questions remain in the Libby case. His indictment "basically for participating in a coverup I think inevitably raises the question in people's minds: Who was he trying to protect and what was he trying to protect?" says Joel K. Goldstein, author of a book on the vice presidency and a law professor at St. Louis University.

Presidential scholars also marveled at the historic nature of Friday's indictment, looking back through the decades to past examples of high-level legal woes and how presidents have coped.

"What you have with Bush is a double-whammy, the odor of Vietnam and the smell of Watergate," says historian Robert Dallek.

Others detect a scent not quite so powerful, in part because Rove has not been indicted and because Bush has not been directly implicated. "It's less than Watergate, because I don't see anything that points a dagger at the president, to the point that he can't finish his four years," says Fred Greenstein, a presidential scholar at Princeton University. "But whether he can pull out of this succession of difficulties is hard to say."

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