Matt Damon, wanna-be Chicano spymaster!

In the last couple of days, two beloved, anonymous spies sent me startling tidings that Matt Damon had recently and nonchalantly pushed another Mexican American actor out of a plum Hollywood role when he was selected by Robert De Niro* to play a version of Mexican-American CIA operative James Jesus (that's Jesús as in "the moose," not Jesus as in "Rhesus") Angleton in The Good Shepherd--in the movie, Angleton's character's name is Edward Bell Wilson. Tom Manggold, in the British Mail on Sunday, holds forth on this miscasting eloquently, with his swarthy-detector tongue sharply in cheek: "Jim Angleton was a 6ft 1in, half-Mexican, sallow-faced, brown-eyed, wide-mouthed, stooping, secretive, ghostly figure who always wore dark clothes and a black homburg. I didn't add that Damon is to Angleton what Peter Pan would have been to Marlon Brando."

*The casting directors for The Good Shepherd (as noted at imdb.com) were Sig De Miguel, Amanda Mackey Johnson, Cathy Sandrich and Wendy Weidman, so wise guy De Niro can't take the whole rap for the movie's anti-chicanegans!