HKL Films: Wag The Dog 1997 Trailer- A Movie About a Real Made Up Presidential Scandal

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Press

The late 1990s was a crazy and fascinating time for many reasons politically and other things and also one of the best periods for Hollywood as far as making movies. Some of my favorite movies of all-time come from 1997-99. Wag the Dog 1997 being one of them, Jackie Brown 1997 being another as far as I’m concern the best Quentin Tarantino movie of all-time. Out of Sight 1998 being another one, Primary Colors 1998 another one of my favorite movies. Cop Land 1997, The Big Lebowski 1998 maybe my favorite comedy of all-time with a great comedy duo in Jeff Bridges and John Goodman. Very Bad Things 1998 another very funny movie, Wild Things 1998 very funny.

But one movie in particular because it fit in perfectly with the times especially politically. The Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks in January 1998 the same month that the Pope visits Cuba which I doubt made the United States Government very happy especially with their embargo policy of Cuba. And also when President Clinton was probably at his most popular. Wag the Dog came out about a year earlier, in the Summer of 1997, two American embassies in East Africa were bombed and then America attacks both Sudan and Afghanistan.

Because the Clinton Administration believed that the Sudanese Government had a role of the African bombings. Again we attack Afghanistan as well that same month August 1998, but here’s the thing and why Wag the Dog is so relevant. That movie is about people working for the White House creating the appearance of a war in order to get the media and people’s attention off the latest sex scandal of the President.

After America attacked Sudan and Afghanistan by sending in missile strikes, Republicans in Congress Senator Dan Coates of Indiana whose generally a pretty rational and responsible person, right away questions whether the missile strikes had something to do with the Lewinsky scandal. And was done as a distraction just like in the movie Wag the Dog and even said something to that effect. “I wonder or I hope this is not a Wag the Dog moment for President Clinton”. The movie came out just a few months before the Lewinsky scandal broke. Wag the Dog is a movie about the President being in trouble with another sex scandal. He’s a popular President up until the scandal and looks like he’s flying to reelection.

But the scandal breaks and of course his opponent in the race a U.S. Senator played by Craig Nelson try’s to make the most out of it. Senator Nelson lets say is way down in the polls and is looking for anything he can to break through. Someone in the White House calls in a veteran big shot political strategist to deal with the scandal played by Robert DeNiro and he gets the idea that what the President needs is a distraction. To get the country’s attention off of the sex scandal and comes up with the idea of a fake war and hire a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman to put this show together.

Wag the Dog is a great movie for several reasons, one because of how relevant it is, perhaps not realistic though especially in the information age. And this movie did come out in 1997 as far as them being able to cover up a fake war without the Defense Department, CIA or someone knowing about it. But it’s still a very funny movie, well written and a great cast Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Macy, Ann Heche, Craig Nelson, Dennis Leary and others. And how desperate that these politicos were to save a Presidency and would even create a fake war to do that.

Read Full Post »

Remember This: ‘The Real Story- Behind the Clinton Scandals’

Source: Remember This– Bill & Hillary Clinton at The White House 

Source:The New Democrat 

“David Brock, a conservative-turned-liberal pundit, has said he was once a part of an effort to dredge up a scandal against Clinton. In 1993 Brock, then of the American Spectator, was the first to report Paula Jones’ claims. About the book:Amazon.”

From Remember This

The real story behind the Bill Clinton scandals was that most of them were bogus. (To be kind) The Lewinsky affair and the China scandal from 1996 were the only real stories and so-called scandals for Bill Clinton as President, which is nothing compared with Ronald Reagan with Iran Contra and Richard Nixon with Watergate. Or go back to Lyndon Johnson lying to the country about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and the progress of the war.

The hatred towards Bill Clinton from the Far-Right and other hyper partisans in this country, except for the race factor, is not that much different from the hatred that Barack Obama has received as President. What they hate about Bill Clinton is what they hate about Barack Obama. Which is what they both represent, two New Democrats on the Center-Left who represent the changing of America that we’ve gone through as a country since the 1960s. With all sorts of new Americans having their freedom in this country. No longer restricted to living a traditional way of life.

The Far-Right in America lives in the 1950s. The rest of the country lives in the 21st Century as far as how Americans live in this multi-culture and lifestyle country where all Americans are free to be themselves. And no longer having to feel the need to hide who they are or try to be someone else. And when someone from this part of the country rises to power and becomes not just powerful and not just the most powerful person in the country, but in the world, the Far-Right goes nuts and accuses that person of trying to destroy their way of life and seeks out to destroy them.

Read Full Post »

The Book Archive: Video: C-SPAN: Bill Clinton and Bill Maher at the 1995 Political Correspondents Dinner

.
This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

To write a blog about 1995 or even a satire about it I really have to go deep into my memory bank to remember what I think about that year. I was only nineteen at the time for most of that year. President Bill Clinton and Bill Maher touched on Vice President Al Gore’s reinventing government program that looked to save money in the Federal budget by making programs work better and consolidation. The OJ Simpson murder trial of course was big and if you watched anything on cable news that year, you would think that was the only story that year.

House Republicans wanted to gut PBS which the President touched on by saying that “PBS could only afford to send Jim Leher and not Robert McNeil because of the budget cuts”. They were the co-hosts of the PBS NewsHour in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The 1996 presidential campaign was already going on with Bob Dole the Leader of the Senate already the GOP frontrunner for president. And the Leader proposing to move Congress’s Senate sessions up to New Hampshire and Iowa so Leader Dole wouldn’t have to fly back to Washington as much.

I could go into the government shutdown that happened in the fall of 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing that happened in April 1995, but those things happened after this dinner and the people who performed that night performed before those events happened, so I’m not going to go into that. But just the first few months of 1995 with a brand new Republican Congress the first one since 1953 and House Republicans donating their lives to passing their Contract For America, you knew this was going to be a fascinating year.

Comedian in Chief

Read Full Post »