Fineman: When White House spin, spins out of control (Indictments coming?)

[sabra]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9751606/

When White House spin, spins out of control
Lessons from the special prosecutor's office

That will be the lesson if Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicts anyone in the Valerie Plame leak case. Poetic justice is a concept as old as drama, but it applies time and again in the theater of presidential politics. Traits and tactics that lead to power lead to overreach, and ruin. In our day, justice is administered (and balance restored) by law, not by gods. Still, the idea is the same.

You don’t have to reach far back to find examples. Richard Nixon’s rise was made possible by his calculating, outsider’s mind. He knew how to use fear in the service of power because he was so full of fear himself. But this perfect instrument for Cold War and diplomatic realpolitik metastasized into Oval Office paranoia, CREEP and Watergate.

Bill Clinton’s gift was his rogue charm and ability to convey a sense of empathy. But his personal story — “The Comeback Kid” who still believed in a town called Hope — became all too personal when Monica Lewinsky walked through the door. Winsome became tawdry, charm became mendacity — and Clinton nearly was booted out of office.

...

Will Fitzgerald indict anyone?” Well-placed insiders, including two I’ve talked to in the last two days, think that he will. And then the gods, or rather the law, will begin to speak.