The Good Shepherd

Just went to see the ironically titled The Good Shepherd, De Niro’s movie about the CIA. I was looking forward to a realistic account of the CIA’s founding and early history, but this is definitely not it. What a disappointment. It’s just another bullshit Hollywood flick about the evil U.S.A., the evil CIA, and the evil WASPs who control everything. It has all the subtlety and depth of a Berkeley Barb cartoon showing blood dripping from Robert McNamara’s fangs. The threat of Soviet Communism? Fehgeddaboutit. The Soviet threat was just a fiction whomped up by the evil Skull and Bones members at the CIA to give themselves something to do. Of course, like everything out of Hollywood these days, it has great production values, excellent acting, fabulous camera work. Love the cars, the costumes, the settings. But is it beyond the imagination of anyone in Hollywood that there might have been good, patriotic, dedicated people at the CIA, who, at great personal sacrifice, successfully protected us all from very real existential threats to our freedom?