[opportune]

People love to assume that the CIA/NSA/etc are all powerful all knowing cabals running the entire world, while also believing that government is inherently incompetent.

Anybody who’s been in a large organization, even one that’s highly selective or difficult to join, knows that they’re as a rule chaotic, dysfunctional, and reactive with no coherent or coordinated planning. They’re also composed of individuals who usually run the gamut of moral and honest to deceitful and self serving - but the “sociopathic puppet master genius” is more of a fictional archetype than something that exists in reality.