This article features minor spoilers for the film Wag the Dog (1997).Barry Levinson’s 1997 political parody,Wag the Dog, couldn’t have had better timing. The movie, centering on a US president staging a war to distract the populace from a sex scandal, seemingly manifested itself in reality. President Clinton’s military strikes against Sudan took place as he was being investigated for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, were purely coincidental, but try telling that to Saddam Hussein or the equally remorseless press out for lurid headlines.
The timing of Clinton’s bombing campaign was immediately the source of immense international ridicule, with many pundits pronouncing his presidency doomed. Ostensibly written to lampoon the power of the TV news and the growing prominence of spin doctors, the film has since taken on a different meaning over the years. Back in the late ’90s, the buzzword “wag the dog” was shoe-horned into every political discussion, describing politicians manipulating the media to cover up their sordid personal lives.
Foretelling this chapter of history, Levinson and his cast and crew, includingRobert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Denis Leary, William H. Macy,and Kirsten Dunst, unwittingly became tied up with world politics, the unwanted attention from the film threatening to decimate Bill Clinton’s career. This story has a twist ending, once again proving the maxim that true life is stranger than fiction.
Wag the Dog
War for Sale
Heavily modified from the eponymous novel,Wag the Dogwas released in 1997 to minor fanfare. Levinson’s black comedy about a scandal-prone, degenerate president using sleight of hand and thepower of political propagandato stage a bogus war in Albania probably would have faded into oblivion if not for an incredible series of events in the final term of President Clinton.
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As rumors of infidelity with a White House intern escalated, Clinton bombed a chemical factory in Sudan known as Al-Shifa, the parallels becoming uncomfortable as news leaked out about Clinton’s personal life.Clinton’s penchant for women became a joke around the world. Missile strikes on alleged terrorist weapon-manufacturing plants in Sudan were compared to the fake war in the Levinson political farce, wherein the president enlists a PR guru and film producer to manufacture a war.
A Presidency in Peril
The administration did a poor job of proving that the Sudanese facility produced deadly nerve gas, as the Defense Department asserted. The press latched onto the “wag the dog” narrative. Some experts even suggested the movie paralyzed Clinton politically, interfering with his foreign policy, as he had been mulling over bombing Iraq as a show of force after Saddam Hussein refused weapons inspectors into the nation as part of the United Nations Special Commission.
By January 1998, the Israel-Palestine peace summit had fizzled out amid speculation that Clinton was too upset over a looming impeachment vote to give the negotiations his full attention.In 1998, Iraqi television trolled Clinton, airing the R-rated satire — reportedly a bootleg copy,according to CBS News— as propaganda against the United States, and more specifically, the “debased and immoral” leadership.
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European journalists pronounced Clinton as good as dead. “The charges of a ‘wag the dog’ presidency and ‘bimbo bombings,'” were poisoning his ability to act, political historianOfira Seliktarnotes. “Both supporters and detractors of Clinton maintained that the scandal hurt the foreign policy of the administration.” All the more bizarre, as Clinton had known of the film’s production before it ever debuted in theaters. Never wasting a chance to network with celebrities, he hobnobbed with De Niro and Hoffman,so unconcerned about possible incrimination that he personally permitted them to film scenes on the White House grounds.
Bill Clinton’s Happy Ending
Funny thing. Clinton didn’t lose credibility. He did in fact bomb Iraq and Yugoslavia just like he threatened, andhe left office more popular than four years prior. Which is coincidentally how the film ends. Interviewed after the controversy broke, Levinson stated that the real-life story was too implausible to ever predict or be believed if it were projected on screens. Playing down his prognosticating skills, hetold theL.A. Weeklythat his satirical comedy paled in comparison to reality:
“The whole thing is not unlike a movie that suddenly doesn’t make sense halfway through and you go, ‘Well, this isn’t working for me. Good premise, but it’s out of control.’ I think that applies to this –an interesting story, but we go, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, the whole thing’s gone haywire, you’ve lost me.'”
Certain elements ofWag the Dogdon’t age well. The director was baffled by Clinton’s soaring popularity, reaching a career-high 73% approval rating at the apex of theLewinsky news cycle. Clinton was not a disgraced politician. Starting the Clinton Global Initiative charity, he became an elder statesman of the party, while his wife surfed on his coattails thanks to his brand power and legacy.
The film’s premise, and especially its finale, hinges on the accepted wisdom that no respected politician could survive such sex scandal allegations.Clinton demolished that notion almost instantly. It’s an elegant and poignant piece of writing… and shockingly dated. It says a lot about how we blindly consumed media content and once granted our leaders the benefit of the doubt in the ’90s. However, this film, as clever as it was, couldn’t be made today because we’ve become extremely jaded toward such institutions. AnAI-infested realityno one could have predicted back when we all got our news from the same three, universally trusted news channels in 1997. Good luck rebooting this one, Hollywood.
