Fitzgerald visited Bush's defense lawyer?

This is making the blog rounds from the summary NYTimes piece today.

Mr. Fitzgerald was spotted Friday morning outside the office of James Sharp, Mr. Bush's personal lawyer. Mr. Bush was interviewed about the case by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what discussions, if any, were taking place between the prosecutor and Mr. Sharp. Mr. Sharp did not return a phone call, and Mr. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, declined to comment.

So what do I make of this? Hmmm....

The most benign explanation I can think of is that Fitzgerald was giving Bush a head's up on what was coming, although, despite the unusual circumstances of indictments in the Whitehouse, that would seem to cross some ethics line. Was Fitzgerald assuring Sharp that Bush wouldn't be indicted? Awfully late for that, unless Bush was in some jeopardy we didn't see from the outside. Maybe he was picking up information or a questionaire regarding Rove's eleventh hour new information. Was Bush the mysterious Mr. X who was Novak's other source?

I just can't get my head around this, but I think it may be significant although we may never know why.

Update: I guess the Plame Gossip section of this blog isn't over yet.

The LATimes has a Rove's attorney's sourced story that claims the "eleventh hour" information.

But at the last minute, new information, reevaluation of older evidence and negotiations with Rove's lawyers combined to spare the top White House aide for now, according to sources close to Rove and familiar with the inquiry.

As recently as Tuesday, for example, prosecutors began to focus on a 2003 e-mail exchange between Rove and a White House colleague. The exchange could be seen as supporting Rove's contention that he had not intentionally misled investigators. .....

"Levine's acknowledgment that the Cooper conversation did not come up in my client's conversation with Rove seems to support a theory that it just wasn't that important to Rove and could therefore have been easily forgotten," said Daniel French, Levine's attorney.

So, the Rove defense is, this was so minor that Karl Rove didn't mention it in a conversation or an email later the same day. So, of course his "I don't recall" wasn't perjury and obstruction. Doesn't seem too strong, but there's gotta be something more to stop an indictment.

Also, this article quotes "Rove associates" who said there was never any talk of a plea deal. (despite the previous reported and acknowledged use of the word "negotiations" by other "Rove associates.")

So, this is from the Rove defense, and I think it's pretty heavily spun, but, there you go.

It's not getting any clearer, but I would guess it will only be a couple weeks or a month more.