Fitzmas Morning.

Bloggers has christened the day upon which Patrick Fitzgerald announces indictments against senior White House officials in connection with the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent "Fitzmas". Today is supposed to be the day.

Two observations.

First, Vestal Vespa wants you to know that Patrick Fitzgerald is hot (she said it twice).

While this may seem like the vapid musings of a sex crazed twenty-something blogger, it may actually matter. You see, the indictees will be tried before a jury, and in real life, juries are influenced by things like whether the prosecutor is hot.

This led me to make another observation. While the grand jury composition probably doesn't matter in this case (grand juries go along with prosecutors 99.9% of the time), the composition of the trial jury does, and this jury will be drawn from the District of Columbia. Normally, this would be a bad thing for a prosecutor, as District of Columbia juries tend to be much more defense friendly than, for example, suburban Virginia juries. But, in a trial against defendants who are senior Republican political operatives, the trial could hardly have a less favorable venue for these defendants, and trial publicity, a common ground for a change in venue, will be hard to make a basis for a change of venue in this case because the case has been widely reported nationwide. Indeed, this very venue may turn out to have been an important cudgel for Fitzgerald to win concessions in the plea negotiation process.

So, Merry Fitzmas! I look forward to the surprises that today will bring.