The lighter note that closes out this morning’s Jolt:

From Russia With Love, If Not Quite Competence
If I ever have to go toe to toe with Russian intelligence, I want them to send whichever remaining agent most reminds them of Anna Chapman. Easy on the eyes, and not too strenuous on the wits, either: “‘She also had problems keeping her cover stories straight. She made up a different story every time,’ he said. ‘The first time, she said she ran a real-estate Web site. Then the next time, she was working on an oil deal. [Then] she told me she was a derivatives trader. I asked her one thing any derivatives trader would know and she didn’t know what I was talking about,’ he said. ‘She was just dumb, quite frankly.’”
You get the feeling at some point she sent back a message to Moscow begging for cash because she had been swindled out of her lunch money by a moose and a squirrel.
Anne Applebaum offers a plausible theory of why the Russians put so much effort into creating agents who couldn’t really get access to much valuable information: “In its time, the KGB did not believe in the free circulation of information, either — the so-called free press was always held to be a tool of the capitalist exploiters — and neither does a part of the current Russian ruling class.” If it’s in the American newspapers, it can’t be true.
I realize the great Adam Baldwin is busy with at least 13 episodes of Chuck, but I could see a great comedy-drama about a ring of Russian spies who go hopelessly native in America and lose any real interest in ever returning to the motherland, much less seriously undermining the security of their new home. Jewel Staite must play the role of the redheaded shopaholic; we would have Robert Davi and Janine Turner as the deep-cover Montclair suburban couple constantly demanding Moscow give them the down payment for a jumbo mortgage for that ideal McMansion. Of course, the spy ring could have some actual bad guys. And all the while, FBI Agent Adam Baldwin is homing in on the ring, his suspicions aroused by the latest strange fact that doesn’t add up . . . then having to wonder whether the thoroughly Americanized, not-terribly-competent crew of FSB spies is a bigger security risk to us or to the Russians.