This is NOT the NYT. Check out the Times site for the real article, which comes to a very different conclusion. Newsmax has rewritten it in a wildly optimistic way, and inserted a lot of editorial matter (such as the impropriety of the original charges) that simply doesn't appear. Not sure of the motivation here, but ther's some serious wishful thinking involved.
Wildy optimistic? No - not really. The NewsMax story merely states that Fitzgerald has probably abandoned any prosecution based on Plame's "outing" - and is instead going after "peripheral" [the Times' characterization] issues.
That's not spin. It's re-prioritizing the facts reported by the Times in the order of what's most newsworthy.
It's not newsworthy to speculate that Rove and/or Libby may be indicted for perjury, obstruction, etc. Lib news reports have been doing that for weeks.
What is newsworthy is that Fitzgerald's probe - according to the Times - focused on conflicting testimony "almost from the start" [again, the Times words] - which indicates he knew his Leakgate case [the actual Plame outing] didn't amount to a hill of beans.
If indictments do come down, Bush defenders will want to scrutinize this aspect of Fitzgerald's probe - i.e. - If Fitzgerald knew "almost from the start" that his leak case had evaporated, then why did he continue to pursue an investigation into lies about something that was already understood not to be criminal.