Power, meet truth

 McKayla Maroney tops out at 5-feet-4 and weighs all of 100 pounds, but God help you if you cross her. Same goes for Aly Raisman and Simone Biles and Maggie Nichols.

They're all world class gymnasts, see, which means some people look at them and see pixies or sprites or perfectly darling little Tinkerbells. Why, they're just as cute as li'l ol' puppy dogs, these women.

Now say that to Maroney or Biles or Raisman or Nichols. I dare you.

Here's the thing about gymnasts: They're about as cute and spritely and Tinkerbell-y as Rambo. Almost every one of them, because of the nature of what they do, has played hurt in ways that would leave a 250-pound linebacker curled up weeping somewhere.

They're tougher than almost anyone you know., in other words. Hell, they're tougher than the FBI.

Don't know if you saw it, but if you didn't you should jump on the interwhatsis and watch the way Maroney, Raisman, Biles and Nichols played Shred the Feds in Washington yesterday. They got called to testify in front of the usual D.C. bag of hammers, and they were in no mood to be polite.

This will happen when you've been betrayed the way these women were betrayed, by everyone from Michigan State University to USA Gymnastics to, yes, the FBI -- which pissed down its leg for 14 months while Larry Nassar continued to abuse young gymnasts the way he'd been abusing them for 20 years.

Not only did they sit on multiple reports of Nassar's predation, they falsified the reports and then lied about it. In other words, they protected Nassar's sicko ass.

The general tone of the gymnasts' testimony about that: "What the f***, man?"

"It truly feels like the FBI turned a blind eye to us," Biles said.

"Why would duly sworn officers ignore reports of abuse across state lines?" Raisman asked.

And then there was Maroney.

"By not taking action on my report, (the FBI) allowed a child molester to go free for more than a year," she said. "They had legal evidence of child abuse and did nothing.'

Moreover, she said, "they chose to falsify my report and minimize my abuse."

Speaking truth to power has never had a more plainspoken example, nor was that plainspoken-ness more needed. And it reduced FBI director Christopher Wray to pleading apologies and backpedaling like an NFL corner.

As well he should have been. The FBI, after all, was only the final and most egregious of the officials who failed these women. MSU knew what the guy was doing for years and somehow kept letting him continue doing it. USA Gymnastics officials and coaches, some of them, simply refused to take seriously the many stories of Nassar's abuse because Nassar had been an integral part of their program for years, and lots of influential people in the gymnastics world vouched for him. 

If I'm the city of Indianapolis, where USA Gymnastics is headquartered, I tell 'em to hit the road tomorrow.

And the FBI?

Well. Four fierce women gave it what was coming to it yesterday.