I agree with WaPo's Ed Rogers:

If we give the president the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows the truth is going to come out, the question remains: Does the administration appoint the special prosecutor sooner or later? The calculus inside the White House is how to best protect the president's political interests. They have two options. They could delay the appointment and let more of the story develop, weather the ugly piecemeal disclosures, give the players time to get their stories straight and lawyer-up and hope Republicans continue their overreach, giving the whole affair a nutty partisan patina. Or, they could accelerate the appointment of a special prosecutor, thereby slowing the congressional inquiries and giving Jay Carney some relief from his daily embarrassing routine by supplying him with the escape hatch of not being allowed to comment on matters associated with the special prosecutor's ongoing investigation. Not to mention, the White House all the while could blast the appointed counsel as a partisan ideologue à la the hatchet job that was done on Ken Starr.

Anyway, if the president is innocent, he will end up needing and wanting a special prosecutor sooner rather than later. If he and his White House already have too much to hide, then they must clam up, cry partisanship and hope their allies on the Hill and in the media have the stamina for the long, hard slog ahead.

The politics of this is pretty clear. If the president names a special prosecutor soon, it will take most of the summer to set up shop, line up witnesses, and generally get the invetigative wheels turning. This is to the Democrat's advantage in that, 1) the scandal disappears from the headlines for a few months; and 2) the special prosecutor will probably wrap up the investigation before the 2014 mid terms.

Assuming that no smoking gun is unearthed that puts Obama at the center of a plot to intimidate and destroy his political opponents, the special prosecutor investigation may look bad for the White House and may even weaken the president, but Obama and the Democrats will be able to ride out the storm with minimal fall out to hurt them in 2014.

At this point, it's tbe best case scenario for the Democrats. But if there is, in fact, evidence leading to the president's guilt of an abuse of power, expect the White House to hunker down and try to prevent the appointment of a special prosecutor at all costs.