I thought it was coincidental that Bob Novak outed Valerie Plame on Ari Fleischer's last day at the White House.

But recent revelations that Libby and Rove were shopping the story to the press as early as May, 2003, make me wonder if Fleischer's surprise announcement of his resignation on May 20 was indeed related to the outing. To mix metaphors, was this the straw that caused Fleischer to lose his stomach for the administration's behavior? Or (perhaps more likely) was he already visualizing the felony indictments?