Then Obama allowed Bill Clinton to be used as swag to release those selfish girls from North Korea. Short story for Maoists.

This seems to be a bedtime story for Cuba. Instead of arresting Cuban spies or Cuban sleeper cells (because they sympathize with Fidel) identified or outed from the old State Dept. couple who confessed to being communist spies early into the Obama administration, they went with the Russian subset.

…why the Russians were willing to swap arguable traitors for ten supposed failures.

Better question yet #1 – why the “arguable traitors” were alive and available to be swapped. KGB turncoats typically get a bullet to the back of the head pretty quickly. Allowing non-US spies to be seen to be snatched away to the West, presumably to a hero’s welcome, a new identity, and life of comfort is not the message Putin would logically want to be sent!

Better question yet #2 - why the US media covered this so openly and approvingly. Any time the media uncritcally covers a story that portrays US national security work in a positive light, and the Russians as actual threats (instead of the boogey-men under the conservatives’ bed), you just know they are reading from somebody’s script!

Like everything else about this administration and their pals in the media, this smells like horse manure.

They have no moral loyalty to our nation! Why think they would feel obligated to keep secrets from Mother Russia?

1. Negotiating for a swap before apprehending the spies seems really odd. The update (regarding considering) makes more sense and that doesn’t discount the possibility that a swap had been considered before as well.

2. In Russia people widely believe that the spies were not for real and that the story was concocted by the evil US. Saving them in a swap allows Putin to show how much he cares for his subjects – he saves ten innocent Russians from the clutches of US and is ready to give up four actual spies in return.

3. Russia has in recent years arrested and convicted people of spying in cases where it is very hard to believe that there was any actual spying. Now as part of the deal the four were forced to confess. So Putin can show his sometimes doubting subjects that Russia has nabbed actual spies.

4. Even if the Russian spies were a bunch of bumbling amateurs, it does good for the morale of those remaining (and you can bet there are those) that Russia swapped them out and didn’t leave them to rot in jail.

Tough on criminal activity, tough on foreign spies, good security/national defense PR… and all from a prearranged deal? A success for Government employees and government doing it’s job correctly; catching them before “their plan” was enacted (whatever that story’s plan happens to have been). Yeah, that’s worth a try anyhow. Especially when your own sides’ polling has you running under 50% and issues with major topics… you need to generate some good press. Oh, and bury the gulf spill story for a bit too. Wins all the way around if it works.

Of course the pretty girl as the face of the spies, and her clear incompetence at being a spy ruined that. The story was a joke and not a scare; so the deal was finalized quickly to end the story.

When your plan backfires, better to put out the fire than to try to spin and salvage a clear failure. There will always be another chance.

…

Ok, does this sound entirely plausible and rational, or conspiracy theory lunatic and deranged… or can anyone tell anymore with Obama running things the way he has been?

The more I think about it, the more my gut tells me this whole deal was initiated by Putin, with Obama’s SALT treaty signature as his goal.

Have to wait and see…I’d rather be wrong on this.

Anyone keeping score at how often Team Barry loses one to a foreign power?

this is so wierd and Obama and his punks are so antiamerican nothing would suprise mr

Money’s on Obama signing the SALT treaty in pretty short order.

He’s as meek/feeble with the Russians as he is with the islamists.

I’m with the rest of you – where is Art Bell? I’ll bet he’d have on some marvelous tin foil hat interview to curl our hair.

Dire Straits on July 9, 2010 at 7:48 PM

Dire Straits:All the way back to Dreamland!!!:)

I have no problem with cover stories. I neither need nor want to know everything about how America deals with foreign spies, or uses our own.

But there is no way in Hell this case could possibly have been investigated fully in the time available after the arrest of these spies. If you want to trade them, fine. But keep them long enough to fully debrief all of them and cross check everything they tell you. And that takes AT LEAST several months, and often a year or more.

This crap about “We already knew everything, and they didn’t get any information, so there’s no need to ask any more questions.” Complete gibberish.

My take on this: The FBI did a phenomenal job, and now Obama is working feverishly to destroy everything they accomplished.

If negotiations with the Russians took place BEFORE the alleged spies were apprehended, then we could be talking treason (on the part of Obama and his team-NOT the “spies”) or, at the very least a conspiracy shell con-game in which BOTH the US and Russia are going through meaningless posturing for the consumption of the gullible home folks in both countries. Picture Obama wearing orange-such a nice color.

I feel sorry for the American children who were deported as well without even a trial or hearing on their rights. That is a clear indication that a child born here to an illegal parent is not automatically an American citizen, or at least not until they are 18 and can apply for recognition of their citizenship. Too bad their parents did not come from Mexico.

Skandia Recluse on July 9, 2010 at 7:12 PM

Precisely.

The whole mess stinks.

And that’s saying something these days.

Interesting, isn’t it, that this particular group of “illegals” were shipped out of the country so much quicker than OTHER people who are here “illegally”?…..

In the Obama administration, it’s just another Friday.

The Russians told Obowma what to do, and he did it to get the oil-spill stories off the news cycle…

Seven Percent Solution on July 9, 2010 at 7:30 PM

added my 0.02