Earlier this week, as the noose appeared to tighten around the Brooks-Brothered neck of I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, the vice president's top adviser, one of my, ahem, more naive friends expressed surprise. ``He sounds so benign,'' she said. ``You'd never expect a guy named Scooter to disclose the name of a covert CIA officer.''

Or would you? If you ask me, a man known as ``Cheney's Cheney'' doesn't do anything without forethought, including bringing an aw-shucks childhood nickname into his adult years. Not only did he not lose the Scooter, he flaunts his Scooterness - while at the same time aggressively hiding his first name, which is said to be Irv, or maybe Irve, or Irving. Even Deep Throat - W. Mark Felt, another man suffering from First Initial Suppressive Syndrome - may not know the truth. Cheney's office reportedly will not confirm or deny what the ``I'' stands for.

Not that I'm rushing to judgment, but I think he may use Scooter as a cloaking device.

``With a name like Karl everyone knows you're mean,'' a top Washington observer told me. ``But with Scooter you're under the radar. You're scooting in and out of places.''

Such as a crib. In 2002, Scooter told The New York Times his father gave him the name after watching him crawl across his crib. That same year, however, in an interview with Larry King, Libby mentioned a comparison to New York Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop Phil ``Scooter'' Rizzuto.

Meanwhile, as talk of a possible indictment swirls around Biff, I mean Scooter, here's my question: Is the moral of the story that in America, you can go far even with a name like Scooter? This lets parents off the hook, so far as the pressure to give their offspring distinguished monikers. Or, is it that having a playground name makes a fall from grace that much more horrible, adding a certain degree of embarrassment?

``Think how much worse it might have been for Nixon if he were Richard ``Puddin' '' Nixon,'' the Washington observer noted.

Although, to be fair to Scooter, maybe he insists on using his nickname to make sure the president doesn't give him one. Scooter, after all, is nickname-proof.

I bet that even the Good Ol' Boy-in-Chief couldn't bring himself to say ``Scootie, you're doing a heck of a job.''