Ring around the Roses - Why am I looking for a house on Capitol Hill again? Christmas Eve brought the Washington Post's cheery recap of the progress made on the war on terror, including the first public mention of a joint technological-military operation in the DC area to detect the presence of atomic or radiological bombs. (Called the "Ring around Washington," it was dismantled because it didn't work.) But the highlight of the article was the gloomy assessment of the likelihood of another attack here. Noting that analysts are discounting al Qaeda operative Ramzi Binalshibh's boast that United Flight 93 had been aimed at Congress, the Post disclosed that "the better evidence points to the White House as the target." It then gave this assessement by the former deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism:

Al Qaeda returned on Sept. 11, 2001, to the World Trade Center, which allied terrorists nearly succeeded in toppling in a 1993 bombing. It failed, then succeeded, in attempts to kill an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan. And after missing the USS The Sullivans in port in Yemen in January 2000, he noted, al Qaeda mounted an identical attack with an explosives-laden boat -- this time successful -- against the USS Cole eight months later.

"These guys continue to go back after targets they have tried to get before," Downing said. "That's why I expect they're going to go back to Washington and why I expect they're going to go back to New York, both because of the symbolic impact of those attacks and the economic effect."

But then the Post delivered the punchline:

The strongest expression of that view came in very personal terms from a participant in efforts against al Qaeda whose office is adjacent to Pennsylvania Avenue. "They are going to kill the White House," the official said. "I have really begun to ask myself whether I want to continue to get up every day and come to work on this block."

Great. Is that the part in the nursery rhyme when we all fall down?