The news accounts stress that Earle is Travis County prosecutor. What is more relevant is that Travis County is a more leftist venue than most in Texas, being the seat of the state government AND the site of the main campus of the University of Texas. If Earle prosecuted Democrats, there are a lot more in his jurisdiction than there are Republicans. The probability is that those Democrats whom he prosecuted were the more conservative Democrats. Libs can get back to us with this bedtime story when Earle indicts someone like Congressman Lloyd Doggett.
Meanwhile, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is a Democrat from the Northeast who cut his teeth on prosecuting the five, ummmm, families of New York as US Attorney for New Jersey. Unlike most Clinton era US Attorneys, this guy actually did a quite competent job. It brought him to the attention of then Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL), the last honest major Republican in Illinois who delivered the republic from his predecessor Carol Mostly Fraud. Senator Fitzgerald brought US Attorney Fitzgerald in to simultaneously prosecute former Governor Lyin' George Ryan (now on trial for 22 counts of fraud in government [but I repeat myself]) AND Richie Daley's Chicago Machine. Richie is sweating so much that Lake Michigan has risen three inches during a summer of drought and that's no global warming fantasy (actually the lake is not rising but I'm Irish and why let the facts get in the way of a good story?). Richie IS sweating bullets. Dubya's administration liked Fitzgerald's Illinois prosecution of the Chicago machine s much that he added one more task to the very talented Fitzpatrick's platter. If Richie AND Ryan go to prison, I would gladly elect Prosecutor Fitzgerald as Governor. He is no liberal either.
My sharp impression, admittedly not having paid too close attention to this entire saga, is that the danger here is not Rove or Libby being charged with breaking some obscure law about outing some not entirely covert CIA operative. The danger here is the claim of discrepencies between the testimony of the reporters (Cooper for instance) and the testimony of high Bush administration figures. I.e., the danger is that charges of perjury might be forthcoming. Think Martha Stewart, whose lies about a crime she was never charged with put her in prison. Whether this will happen, I have no idea. But the democrats are hopeful.