What I love the most about this whole "spy affair" is how utterly incompetent and clueless these Russian spies appear to be. I have a hunch that they were more interested in living the good life in the U.S. than serving Mother Russia's interests.
They almost sound like a honeypot: meant to be found as the spies, so the real spies can work in secret. You get the professionals, and them you get a bunch of semi-amateurs who think they are the real game and who can't reveal the professionals.
They most definitely are, or it's just a media circus. My parents and I emigrated from Ukraine and we have similar qualities in terms of lifestyle and connections as these people, we've certainly never known that we were actually spies for Russia but apparently we are. IMO this is a complete media scandal, rather than an actual case in which spies get caught. If they were real spies they'd at least have tried to change handlers, (what they know about Russia is as valuable to the US as what they know about the US to Russia) as I'm sure this kind of stuff tends to happen, or they'd be you know, dead.
[1] http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/06/30/274571/from-roubi...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Man_in_Havana