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Most of the dramatic weight of the X-Files comes from the not-entirely-plausible idea that governments are engaged in and capable of grand conspiracies controlled throughout generations by smart and competent people. Students of history–of the Kennedy-era CIA’s involvement with Cuba, of Iran-Contra, of MK-ULTRA, etc–will naturally be skeptical of this idea. But at least the 20th century provides some grist for the mill.

But in recent years we’ve been treated to government conspiracies spectacular in their incompetence. I finished Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side just before seeing the movie, and it really underscored the point. The U.S. government’s authorization of torture, special rendition, and warrantless wiretapping was made possible by a remarkably half-assed conspiracy between the Office of the Vice President (primarily Dick Cheney and David Addington) and the DOJ’s Office of Legal Council (primarily John Yoo). Basically they realized that if they only shared the legal groundwork for these decisions among a small group of compliant lawyers, they could all agree that those decisions were law–and that’s all the law really is, just coming to a consensus between people as to what is and what is not permissible–for as long as they could keep the decisions from less agreeable officials, who could be kept at bay by threats to their jobs and reputations. And it worked, but only for a year or two, which isn’t much of a conspiracy.