Ain't nobody that Spies Like Us (and vice versa)

Update: Steve Gilliard has a couple of interesting posts today, one serious, one not so much (but not entirely unserious either). First, he writes a thoughtful answer to a question about why he thinks the GOP is-really-falling apart. He begins:

The reason I think this could be the end of the GOP is very simple: corruption from all corners. You have the Majority Leader of the House, the defacto speaker, the Majority Leader of the Senate and the White House all facing criminal investigation.

This is the kind of thing which will fracture the party. It becomes easier to jump ship when the ship is on fire. Bush is a miserable manager, and with Cheney under intense scrutiny and if half of what Fitzgerald is reported to be up to, not only is he not finished, but Cheney is clearly in his sights. What you have now is an unpopular, and I believe emotionally unstable president, who basically let Cheney make all of his key decisions, who relied on Rove daily, facing the loss of his support team.

What is the ripple effect of that? The President can no longer raise money for candidates, neither can DeLay and Frist isn't all that popular, any legal troubles will cripple him as well.

Read the rest. Second, a more fun post theorizing that:

Americans like spies.

We may not fully trust special operators, we may not fully appreciate the FBI, but Americans love spies. Even the most diehard leftist can pick up Alan Furst and be carried away to 1930's Paris or read about the cold war machinations of George Smiley and his battles against Karla and the Moscow Circus.

The reason the GOP has been desperate to minimize Valerie Plame and her career is as simple as a trip to Blockbuster or Barnes and Noble.

In the American imagination, spies are heroes. From the suave Scotsman James Bond to the harried old school spies of John LeCarre, to the quick and sly spies of Len Deighton to the weary spies of Graham Greene, the spy is a hero in our imagination. He is the man at the end of the rope who lives.

When it becomes clear that the Bush Administration really did betray spies, all hell will break loose. While most Americans have little idea of what espionage is, a grimy business of betrayal, blackmail and greed, they know that when they go to the movies, they've seen everyone from Brad Pitt to Michael Douglas play spies. They know James Bond is the modern Western hero, suave and deadly.