VP Condi?

Could Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice get a promotion to vice president shortly after her coin toss at Bryant-Denny Stadium?

U.S. News & World Report says that's the buzz going around Washington as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gets ready to lower the boom and seek indictments later this month after his two-year investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. With The Washington Post reporting today that Fitzgerald's probe is focusing on Vice President Cheney's office, D.C. insiders are batting around the possibility -- unlikely though it may be -- that Cheney may resign.

Of course, the speculation needs to be taken with a heavy grain of salt. For one thing, though it's looking increasingly unlikely that Fitzgerald will choose not to charge anyone, we still have no idea who he might decide to prosecute and for what, and there remains a small chance that the probe will end without any criminal charges. For another, Rice said as recently as Sunday that she has no interest in running for president in 2008, which is the kind of temptation that most sitting vice presidents in good health would find impossible to resist when their bosses can't seek re-election.

Will Rice end up as VP in the next year? Probably not, but the very fact that White House staffers are talking to the press about such rumors shows how worried Bush administration officials are about the fallout from Fitzgerald's investigation.