Flagpole article?

This bizarre article - Reporters Put Under Scrutiny in C.I.A. Leak - strikes me as a flagpole article - "let's run it up the flagpole, boys, and see who salutes!"
The article hints that no charges are going to be laid -- ". . . investigation inside the government, in which the president, the vice president and many other officials have been questioned, seems to have been both exhaustive and inconclusive . . . ". And while the text seems to confirm that Scooter Libby is one of the guilty ones -- "The four reporters who have testified in the Plame case say they talked about conversations with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff . . . Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, said Mr. Libby had signed a form authorizing reporters to tell prosecutors about their conversations with him.. " -- the graphic implies he is not, or at least, not the only guilty one.
So the article, itself, becomes the prosecution if the investigation stalls.
And if the public and blogger reaction is that of course journalists should protect their sources, that the public interest demands it - well, then, that's the end of the investigation. If the reaction, however, is one of horrified disgust - how dare they connive at protecting a criminal? - then maybe the investigation continues.