Will Fitzgerald get the axe?

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is the man behind the Plame investigation, also known as Rovegate, Leakgate, Traitorgate, and some other names. He's also a lifelong Republican. But his term is up soon, and there have long been mutterings on the progressive blogs that it would be just another day in the White House iff he were sacked and replaced with someone less dedicated to upholding the law-- at least as far as White House officials are concerned. Just speculation, of course, but it looks like the White House is pretty familiar with the routine:

"We still aren't seeing signs that Fitzgerald will be let go anytime soon, but a report in today's Los Angeles Times suggests that the president may not be above canning a prosecutor who starts sniffing around too close to home. Walter F. Roche Jr. writes in the Times that a grand jury in Guam opened an investigation into the actions of lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago but that the investigation ended abruptly after Bush removed the acting U.S. attorney who had been supervising it.
The Times says the federal grand jury in Guam was looking into Abramoff's "secret arrangement" with local court officials to lobby against a court revision bill then pending in Congress. As the Times has reported previously, the Guam officials' deal with Abramoff's was just a little unusual for a public agency: Abramoff was "paid with a series of $9,000 checks funneled through a Laguna Beach lawyer to disguise the lobbyist's role working for the Guam court," the Times says.
On Nov. 18, 2002, the grand jury run by Acting U.S. Attorney Frederick A. Black issued a subpoena demanding that the administrative director of Guam's Superior Court turn over documents related to the lobbying contract. The next day, the Times says, Bush demoted Black."