Spies like us

So, the Russian spies. Does anyone get a feeling that this is all just a really, really elaborate marketing campaign for Angelina Jolie’s new movie? Salt is about a possibly deep cover sleeper spy, and it has a very slick advertising campaign. And now all the sudden, there’s a bunch of Russkie spies getting picked up and splashed across the news. Am I wrong? Isn’t the Cold War over? Spies? Really? It’s gotta be a PR stunt, right?

And the more I read, the more I think real spies wouldn’t have been this incompetent. I’d say they’ve been using the Burn Notice “Ask a Spy” webgame as a training video, but honestly Bruce Campbell hands out better tips. For free. Dead drops, fine. It’s a classic. But pre-paid cell phones? My 11-year old niece uses better tricks to pass notes in school. And evidently, Perez Hilton does a better job of intelligence gathering than this bunch. Why would the Russians want to buy this information if they could get the same thing watching TMZ? Lame.

On the other hand, the Salt ad campaign is pretty slick. And slick is the last word I’d use to describe this spy operation. If I was Russia, I’d be denying all knowledge. Not because it was spying. Because it was just so bad. Em-bar-ass-ing.