Cheney's Office: The Sound of Silence

[UPDATE below]
Raw Story makes the following explosive claim:

The case of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame is
set to explode. The New York Daily News is
set to report in Tuesday editions that a
well-placed source interviewed by the
newspaper believes a senior White House
official has flipped and may be helping the
prosecutor in the case, RAW STORY has
learned.

The Daily News will reveal that a top source
believes that based on the questioning of
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his
other contacts with the investigation, someone
in the White House has turned.

Based on the length of his most recent grand jury appearance, Jeralyn Merritt is guessing that the "flipper" is none other than Karl Rove. (If that turns out to be the case, I'd just like to point out that I wrote a post almost two weeks ago entitled "Is Fitzgerald Trying to Flip Rove.")

Meanwhile, more and more fingers are being pointed at the Vice President. The headline for the latest Washington Post story is "Cheney's Office is Focus in Leak Case". The Wall Street Journal leads with "Prosecutor in Leak Case May Be Looking Into Possible Misconduct by Cheney's Office". And the headline at Bloomberg is "Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation".

In light of all this finger-pointing, I think the question I asked last week is even more relevant now: Where are the stories exculpating Cheney? Why does no one appear to be doing any damage control whatsoever on Cheney's behalf? How is it that we still have no idea what Cheney's defense is? Where are the anonymous quotes from "sources familiar with the investigation" indicating that Cheney never ordered Plame's identity leaked? Last week, we saw a number of stories that laid out what will surely be Bush's defense, i.e., that Rove was never fully candid with him. Where are the corresponding stories regarding Libby's conversations with Cheney? Isn't the silence almost deafening at this point?

UPDATE: Here's the article from the NY Daily News. Key passage:

Cheney's name has come up amid indications
Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a
blockbuster conspiracy charge - with help
from a secret snitch.

"They have got a senior cooperating witness
- someone who is giving them all of that," a
source who has been questioned in the leak
probe told the Daily News yesterday.

This cooperating witness could be Rove. Then again, perhaps it's Novak's original source. Maybe the third leaker has been cooperating all along. Fleischer? Or consider this interesting passage from the Post article:

One former CIA official told prosecutors early
in the probe about efforts by Cheney's office and
his allies at the National Security Council to
obtain information about Wilson's trip as long as
two months before Plame was unmasked in July
2003, according to a person familiar with the
account.

Doesn't that sound like it could be both our third leaker and the cooperating witness? Fleitz? Tenet? McLaughlin? All three would fit that description.