Yesterday I posted a link that took Slog readers deep into the world of obsessive online speculation about the current direction of the CIA leak investigation. The investigation seems set to wrap up by Oct. 28, but because special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been keeping his cards annoyingly close to his vest for almost two years now, and because some people just can’t wait to find out whether the Bush gang will really be in deep trouble over this, there is now a cottage industry in blogged theories about the state of the case — and the state of Fitzgerald’s theory of the case.

Part of what’s driving this cottage industry is the sense, outlined by Arianna Huffington yesterday, that the mainstream media isn’t doing a good job of putting the pieces together — particularly the New York Times, which she suggests has been withholding information about the case in order to protect Judith Miller (and The Times’ reputation).

Yes, some intrepid reporters in the mainstream media are providing key reporting and analysis — Mike Isikoff at Newsweek, Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, Murray Waas at The National Journal and The American Prospect, and Anna Schneider-Mayerson, Tom Scocca and Gabriel Sherman at the New York Observer are all doing great work. But if you’re not reading emptywheel at The Next Hurrah, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake, Tom Maguire, TalkLeft, Jay Rosen, Mickey Kaus, Larry Johnson, and, dare I say it, the Huffington Post, you’re not really getting the full story.

For links to work by all of those names Arianna just dropped, click here.

And for today’s Slog-recommended link into the impressively obsessive world of CIA leak investigation theorizing, check out this post by Mark Kleiman, who creates a sort of unifying theory regarding Judith Miller’s newly-discovered notes. Those notes, you may recall from yesterday’s link, relate to a newly-discovered meeting that Miller had with top Cheney aide Scooter Libby — and something about those notes has led to a second meeting, today, between Miller and Fitzgerald.