If you don’t think that history repeats
itself, consider the case of the 1997 film, “Wag the Dog”.
The portions highlighted
in yellow will seem familiar to you.
Wag the Dog is a 1997
American black comedy political satire film
starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro.
Produced and directed by Barry Levinson,
the film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to
distract voters from a presidential sex scandal.
The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet is
loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's 1993 novel American Hero.
Wag the Dog was released one month before the news broke of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality. The comparison was also made in December 1998, when the administration initiated a bombing campaign of Iraq during Clinton's impeachment trial for the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. It was made again in spring 1999, when the administration intervened in the Kosovo War and initiated a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which, coincidentally, bordered Albania and contained ethnic Albanians.
(Although Bill
Clinton was impeached for the Lewinsky scandal, Trump has been impeached TWICE.
The first time was due to his attempt to hurt Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential
campaign, or 5 years ago, due to his attempt to overthrow the government on
January 6, 2021, almost exactly 5 years ago).
The film grossed
$64.3 million on a $15 million budget, and was well received by critics, who
praised the direction, performances, themes and humor. Hoffman received a
nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his
performance, and screenwriters David Mamet and Hilary Henkin were
both nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The music, by the way,
was done by Mark Knopfler:
(1393) Mark Knopfler - Wag The Dog (Official Video) -
YouTube
Plot
The President of the United States is caught making
advances on an underage girl inside the Oval Office less
than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean, a
top spin doctor,
is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames to take the public's attention
away from the scandal. He decides to construct a fictional war in Albania,
hoping that the media will concentrate on this instead. Brean contacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to
create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a fleeing
orphan to arouse sympathy. The hoax is initially successful, with the president
quickly gaining ground in the polls.
When the CIA learns of the plot, it sends
Agent Young to confront Brean about the hoax. Brean convinces Young that
revealing the deception is against his and the CIA's best interests. But when
the CIA—in collusion with the president's rival candidate—reports that the war
has ended, the media begins to revert its focus to the president's sexual
misconduct scandal. To counter this, Motss invents a hero who was left behind
enemy lines in Albania.
Inspired by the
idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe", Brean and Motss ask
the Pentagon to provide a special forces soldier with a matching name (a
sergeant named "Schumann" is identified), around whom a POW narrative
can be constructed. As part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean records a song
called "Old Shoe", which is pressed onto a 78-rpm record,
prematurely aged so that listeners will think that it was recorded years
earlier and sent to the Library of Congress to be
"found". Bream and Motss fling pairs of old shoes into a tree outside
of the White House grounds. Soon, large numbers of shoes begin appearing on
phone and power lines, and a grassroots
movement to bring home Schumann takes hold, completing a
successful astroturfing.
When the team goes
to retrieve Schumann, they discover that he is actually a criminally insane Army
convict. On the return to Andrews Air Force Base, their plane crashes.
The team survives and is rescued by a farmer, an illegal alien. However, Schumann is killed when
he attempts to rape a gas station owner's daughter. Seizing the opportunity,
Motss stages an elaborate military funeral for Schumann, claiming that he died
from wounds sustained during his rescue, and the farmer receives expedited
citizenship for a better story.
( The novel, “The
dangerous case of Donald Trump”, highlights the fact that he is not exactly
playing with a full deck.)
As the President rallies toward re-election, Motss becomes frustrated that the media are crediting his upsurge in the polls to the bland campaign slogan, "Don't change horses in mid-stream", rather than to Motss's hard work. Despite Brean's offer of an ambassadorship and the dire warning that he is "playing with his life", Motss demands that he receive credit for his production, and he threatens to reveal his involvement unless he gets it. Realizing that he has no choice, Brean orders his security staff to kill him. A newscast reports that Motss has died of a heart attack at home, the president has been successfully re-elected, and an Albanian terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing, suggesting that the fake war is becoming real.
Let’s connect the dots.
Since his inauguration in January, Donald
Trump has generated controversy in the following ways:
He has unilaterally imposed a variety
of tariffs, even though only congress can impose tariffs.
He has sent National Guard troops to
Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, even though there is no legal justification
for doing so
He has bombed Iran, Yemen, and boats
from Venezuela
He has destroyed the East Wing of the
White House, without getting the approval to do so by congress.
He has encouraged the Department of
Justice to attack his political enemies, including James Comey, Letitia James, Adam
Schiff, and Mark Kelly.
He has invaded Venezuela, a clear
violation of the War Powers Act passed by congress in 1974
Sex scandals? Too numerous to mention,
but the Epstein files give a hint at what he did, but so did E. Jean Carroll, Stormy
Daniels, and more than 20 other women.
He has added his name to the Kennedy
Center, and replaced most of the board of directors - even though only congress can change the name.
The transcript of Jack Snith’s closed door
testimony was recently released to the public, and even Judge Cannon is outraged
by its revelations. Jack Smith has stated that Trump is solely responsible for the events of January 6.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee released on Wednesday a transcript and video of a closed-door interview Smith gave about two investigations of Trump. The document shows how Smith during the course of a daylong deposition repeatedly defended the basis for pursuing indictments against Trump and vigorously rejected Republican suggestions that his investigations were politically motivated.
"The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit," Smith said, bristling at a question about whether his investigations were meant to prevent Trump from reclaiming the presidency in 2024.
"So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election," he added.
The Trump administration is one of the
most corrupt in our nation’s history, and selling pardons for $1 million or more is just part of what he is doing.
I am still of the opinion that Trump will
not finish his current term of office due to his declining mental capacity, his
physical condition caused by his diet, his legal problems, and his increasing unpopularity
with both his former supporters in congress, and the general public.
My predictions don’t also go as I
planned, but I’m willing to bet that the paragraph will be true.
Any takers?
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