The Bigger they are, the harder they fall

and that's the truth, at least in politics and entertainment.

White House Briefing  News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration: "Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek: 'George W. Bush rose to power on the strength of a disciplined, aggressive, tightly-focused, leak-proof spin-machine -- one that took issue positions and stuck to them, divided the world (including the media) into friends and enemies, and steamrollered the opposition with ruthless skill while the candidate remained smilingly above the fray. Sure of his social skills but not of his speaking ability (let alone his ability to speak extemporaneously), Bush (and Karl Rove) learned to stick to their bullet-item talking points, to operate through surrogates, all the while steering the initial course they had set for themselves.

'But the machine they built may have run amok -- at least that seems to be what Fitzgerald is examining, as he looks at the leaking of Plame's identity and of other classified information.

'In essence, the Bush-Rove campaign machine was redeployed in the service of selling of the Iraq war and, later, in defense of that sale. Did they go over the line in doing so? We're about to find out.

'In the meantime (and in another twist on the poetic justice theme), the very discipline of the machine itself -- its short internal supply lines, the consistently-followed talking points, the focus on feeding friends and obliterating enemies -- could be helping Fitzgerald. Tightly-knit groups rise together, but they fall together. If the inner circle is small, it takes only one insider 'flip' to endanger the rest.'"

Washington should be emptying faster than it did when the Beltway snipers were running free.