The Washington Post's David Ignatius says that "the continuing legal squeeze on Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller to reveal their sources" in the Valerie Plame leak investigation is curious, indeed -- unless, of course, the underlying issue is now possible perjury by a senior administration official:

Fitzgerald's legal quest makes little sense to me as a leak investigation. The law is fuzzy, the evidence is ambiguous, and the case would be hard to prove. But every good prosecutor hates perjury above all. And on its face, this case raises the possibility that one of the senior administration officials who talked with Cooper or Miller has denied doing so, under oath. Otherwise, Fitzgerald would have been finished months ago.

For journalists, the case raises agonizing issues: Where is the dividing line between journalistic ethics, which demand that reporters protect their sources, and ordinary ethics, which say people should cooperate with law enforcement if they know about possible criminal activity? Do journalists have a special status that exempts them, in certain cases, from the normal responsibilities of citizenship? But this case should worry most of all any White House insider who may have talked with reporters about Valerie Plame and then lied about it under oath.

Honestly, I haven't followed the Plame case closely enough to have a real opinion Ignatius' theory. But it is interesting, and it would certainly seem to explain the facts. So, with the aforementioned caveat, and in the spirit of open and honest inquiry, I'm passing it along for your consideration.