Spy Agencies, Not Politicians, Hold the Cards in Washington

Thursday, 27 March 2014 11:11
By William Greider, The Nation | Op-Ed

I am addicted to House of Cards, the British and American versions, but I suggest that both TV series have been looking at the wrong game.

On television, the story line is about a wicked political schemer, accompanied by his wicked wife, who climbs to the ultimate perch of power—prime minister or president—through fiendishly malevolent manipulations, including homicide. In the real world of Washington, however, politicians look more like impotent innocents compared to their true masters. It is the spooks and the spies who shuffle the deck and deal the cards. They hide their cut-throat intrigues behind bland initials—the CIA and the NSA.

In recent weeks, a lurid real-life melodrama has been playing out in the nation's capital that has the flavor of old-fashioned conspiracy theories. The two clandestine agencies are the true puppet masters.