Unclear and Present Danger - Wag the Dog

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

Wag the Dog tells the story of a scandal-ridden president whose chief spin doctor, Conrad Brean (De Niro), decides to distract the public with a fictional war with Albania. To pull this off, he hires Stanley Motss (Hoffman), a prominent Hollywood producer who throws himself into orchestrating an imaginary war, complete with fake footage, fake war heroes and a popular theme song. The hoax is successful, but it soon comes with a host of complications which require Brean and Motss to take quick action to further deceive the public. In their conversation, Jamelle and John discuss the cynicism, shallowness and laziness of Levinson and Mamet’s depiction of Washington politics, as well as a few real-life examples of manufactured wars, and why most Hollywood political satire just doesn’t work.The tagline for Wag the Dog was “A comedy about truth, justice and other special effects.”You can find Wag the Dog to rent or buy on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.Episodes come out every two weeks so stay-tuned for our upcoming episode on Murder at 1600.And don’t forget our Patreon, where we cover the political thrillers of the Cold War and we offer weekly political commentary. You can subscribe for just $5 at patreon.com/unclearpod. Our producer is Connor Lynch and our artwork is by Rachel Eck.

There's a crisis in the White House. What's the crisis? And the president's top advisors have been called together. Oh, geez. The sexual misconduct occurred inside the Oval Office, with the election only days away. How much will this scandal affect the outcome? The president spent the weekend pressing the flash.

He wasn't campaigning. He was dating. Now, Washington's top spin doctor. We can distract the press for 11 days till the election. I think we've got a chance. Has an idea. We can't afford a more. We're going to have the appearance of a war. But he can't pull it off

without Hollywood's top producer. Do I know you? We have some mutual friends in Washington. Why come to me? We want you to produce. You want me to produce your war? Not a war. It's a pageant. We need a theme, a song, some visuals. We need, you know, it's a pageant.

New Line Cinema Presents. How close are you to this? What do you want the kid to say? All the spectacle. I know we're all concerned for the president. I know we're all concerned for the president I know that we are all concerned for the president He didn't sell the line

All the drama The president's gonna go to war with Albania in about 30 minutes Albania's hard to ride These are chips We need it for the armed position on the street It'll be a kitten, we'll punch it in later, right? And all the effects of real war Okay, put the village behind her

Give me some sound of screaming Without the casualties America has seldom witnessed a more poignant picture They're the same process with the last Schwarzenegger movie. You're the man. Albanyu, Albanyu. That rhymes. I can't believe that.

We forgot a hero. It was like we sent him to Christmas card, and we left out the what do you call? Fruitcake. There you go. Sergeant. Schumann, if I may, welcome to history. How I am?

Anybody want a beer? Because I could party. When it's cooking, it's cooking. From Academy Award-winning director, Barry Levinson. When this goes national, I get to put it on my road. Actually, no. What could they do to me? I'll take him home to your house to kill you.

Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman. This is politics at its finest. Academy Award winner Robert De Niro. How would you like an ambassiorship? That's my payoff. Tell, I'd just do it for a story to tell. Oh no, you couldn't tell anybody. Listen, I'm just kidding.

Oh, he's annoying. No, no, no. It's a page. It's a pageant. That's what it is. Whag the dog. When the fit hits the shan, somebody's going to have to stay after school. Hello and welcome to Unclear and present danger, the podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade.

I'm Jamal Boy. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I'm a columnist for the nation. I write the substack newsletter on popular front. And I'm the author of the book, When the Clock Broke, Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the early 1990s. And according to Ezra Klein, you're a little hard to describe. I'm hard to describe. How would you describe me? I don't know. Mercurial. I thought that was very funny. Yeah, me too. I got it. kick out of it. I was like, I'll take it. That's cool.

It better be hard to describe than easy to describe, I guess. On that note, you should read or watch or listen to John's recent interviewer recording this on Friday, November 14th. His recent interview with my colleague as Reclined on the Eddre Klein show talking about the gropefication

of the Republican Party. If you listen to this for the movie stuff, I mean, you know that we write about politics. John writes about the American right quite frequently and very well. And so it's a good interview, and you should check it out. Thanks. Yeah.

The pot, we can do self-promotion on the podcast. Sure, we have to. I always bring up my book. Yeah, there you go. On this week's episode of The Pod, we watched the 1997 comedy Wag the Dog, directed by Barry Levinson, screenplay by Hillary Henkin and David Mamet. I believe David Mamet had most of the writing. I did most of the writing on this script.

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Ann Hatch, Ann Hatch, I never quite sure I said your last name. And Hesh, I think. And Hesh. Yeah. Dennis Leary, Willie Nelson, Andrew Martin, and a very young Kirsten Dunst in a small part. Cinematography by Robert Richardson, who shot a bunch of Oliver Stone films. He was an Oliver Stone guy.

Salvador, which is a great movie, Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, another great movie. Born on the 4th of July, a better movie than you think. The Doors, JFK, yeah, I mean, basically all of Oliver Stone stuff. He shot JFK, natural born killers, heaven and earth, which I've actually never seen. Never seen it either. Shot the Horse Whisperer, which is a Redford film, which is pretty decent, actually. Redford, Redford, not like a great director, but like a solid director. And yeah, so this guy has a lot of great work shot,

of Equalizer 3, which actually, you know, that's not a good movie, but it looks terrific. That's a movie. Okay, just real quick, the Equalizer 3 is very clearly, Denzel Washington said, I would go into vacation to the south of France. And we can shoot the move. I'll do the third movie as long as we do it there. And so it's like most of the movie is Denzel, you know, having, you know, a cappuccino, a nice breakfast, going through markets.

And then, like, he kills some people. It's pretty enjoyable, actually. But not good. No. Wag the Dog somehow released just one month before the Clinton-Louis-Lewinsky scandal broke. Wag the Dog deals with a fictional president. We never meet him. We don't know anything about him.

He's running for re-election. He is actually far ahead. And this is a parenthetical. Every political movie we've watched seems to have, like, no knowledge whatsoever of, like, how modern American politics operate. so they'll say things like the president's ahead by 15 points and it's like what the hell like if that were the case there's literally nothing that president could do to lose right like nothing's going to reverse there's like there's actually the time horizon of the of the movie right is two weeks before the election but we'll get to all we'll get there yeah so president's running for

election he is far ahead but it scandal breaks that the president was caught making advances on a teenage girl inside the Oval Office. He brings in his top spin doctor, Conrad Breen, played by Robert De Niro, to try to divert attention away from the president's scandal. And the solution he comes up with him and his assistant, played by Anne Heish, is to concoct the fictional war with Albania, chosen because, because no one cares or knows about Albania. And he reaches out the Hollywood producer Stanley Mott, played by Dustin Hoffman, to orchestrate this war and make it seem believable.

The film then just progresses from there. It is the story of how they pull this war together, the necessary escalation in trying to make this war seem believable, trying to placate various other government actors. At one point, the CIA learns of the plot. William H. Macy plays a CIA agent who is, confronting them and Breen has to persuade the CIA not to get involved in any of this. They invent a hero who had fallen behind enemy lines to continue the charade.

That becomes its own debacle in this hero. They can cock. They bring this guy from a military prison played by Woody Harrelson, who is a convicted sex offender, in criminal, who causes its, he causes his own commotion, ends up being killed when he attempts to sexually assault a random woman. So all of these escalations, all of these sort of, these episodes of comic mischief as they attempt to make this war work. There's a whole scene where they have to, they are constructing a fake, a fake scene from the war in Albania where Kirsten Dunn plays a young woman fleeing, you know, Albanian terrorists and so on and so forth.

All of this is successful. I mean, kind of, we'll get into this, but kind of one of the problems with this film is that there's not really any conflict per se. Like there are obstacles they have to overcome and making this fake war happen, but those obstacles are kind of quickly solved by just sort of, you know, quick, clever thinking or some ingenuity. But there's not really any obstacles. So the film ends.

done their fake war. It's been successful. Mots, the only real problem is that Mott's really wants credit for doing this. And that can't happen. The movie strongly suggests that Breen has Mots killed because he refuses not to take credit being a Hollywood producer. And it ends. It ends on the note that perhaps this fake war may have actually inspired a real conflict, that there was, ends up being a terrorist attack by an Albanian organization that claims responsibility for it. And so perhaps in trying to create this fake war, they may have inadvertently sparked real conflict. And then the movie ends. That's the whole thing.

A successful episode of lies and deception and asho-turfing, the president wins re-election. All is well that ends well. in a film that I think is very much written to be and presented to be an example of the kind of cynicism and amorality that defines modern American politics. The tagline for Wagner Dog was, or there are several, a Hollywood producer, a Washington spin doctor, when they get together, they can make you believe anything. a comedy about truth, justice, and other special effects. I imagine this film was maybe either, given the timeline of the actual real-life events, this film likely overlapped with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal breaking. And so one of the taglines is, is this life imitating art in the film that preceded

the biggest news story of 1998? And I'm not sure if this is a real tagline, but IMDB says it is. Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog. That seems like a fake tagline. Worth noting that the term wag the dog is actually kind of old. I thought it originated with the film. The earliest usage of the phrase in politics is found in an article originating in 1871 discussing, I suppose, a Democratic convention. the article references Our American Cousin, which Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. The line is, calling to mind Lund Dunderry's conundrum, the Baltimore American thinks that for the Cincinnati Convention to control the Democratic Party, it would be the tail wagging the dog. And that's the first time, apparently, it's been found in use.

And it doesn't really come into widespread political use until the novel, Wag the Dog, written by Larry Beinhardt in 1983. And this novel ends up being the inspiration for the 97 film, which is a loose adaptation, basic concept, but like the details are totally different. You can find Wag the Dog to watch or stream on Amazon and Apple TV, rent it, I suppose. and wife the dog was released on Christmas Day, 1997. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. Well, you know, the paper tends to be a little sleepy on Christmas Day.

But there's some interesting stuff here. In Panama Corps, GIs would stay. Drug fighting role seen after Canal is turned over in 99. The United States and Panama have reached attentive agreement that would permit American troops to remain in Panama after the United States relinquishes control of the canal in 1999. Officials of both government said today, the accord calls for the establishment of a regional drug interdiction center at Howard Air Force Base, an American installation in Panama that the United States is scheduled to hang over in two years.

Though Panamanian and other Latin American soldiers and police officers would also deploy to the center, which would be under Panama's control, the agreement is essentially a fig leaf to enable the United States to stay on in Panama well into the 21st century, a Latin American diplomat said today. Yeah, so we return Panama to the Panamanian, the Panama Canal to the Panamanians, but this has been a controversial issue in U.S. politics. I mean, there was a time when in the 1980s when it was a huge conservative issue, like we're not going to give the canal back.

And then obviously there was the invasion of Panama undertaken by George H.W. Bush, with the with the pretext being Noriega's narco-terrorism and it's interesting to look at this now because of our kind of saber-rattling with Venezuela we hear similar kinds of things like oh they're this this narco-terrorist

thing the United States obviously is invoking the Monroe doctrine you know I don't need to tell you guys that we're We're real big bullies to our neighbors down south often. But this never seems to go away. I mean, I think from my perspective, often the war on drugs is used to justify larger geopolitical goals of the United States. And I don't know, maybe the current, there is a wag the dog element of the current

saber rattling in Venezuela because we're starting to look at a failed presidency. So something to think about, which we'll discuss when we get to the movie. Okay, let's see what else we got here. uh well here's a little item woody and soon you marry uh new yorkers ponder the underlying significance of the news that woody allen 62 married sun you previn 27 in venice well that's romantic um that just so i cannot hear that without thinking of my favorite uh most deaf yassine bass song from the record black on both sides uh the song is called uh excuse my language folks It's called Mr. Niga.

And there's a lie. Let me find it real quick. I know it, but I just want to be able to say it accurately. It's about, it's a paragraph, which kind of doesn't wear entirely well about how black celebrities are treated unfairly. And so the line is, you can laugh and criticize Michael Jackson if you want to. Woody Allen molested and married a stepdaughter. Same press kicking dirt on Michael's name show Woody and Sue.

at the play playoff game holding hands sit back and just think about that would he get that kind of doubt if his name was woody black that's that's that's those are the bars it's funny to me yeah i mean you know i think in the end uh michael jackson did not assume right that's the judgment of history yeah it's like it's like it's like listen most i get it i get it really i do but you could have found the next bar is him. O.J. found innocent by Jerry of his peers. It's like, it's like most, I get, I get it.

Why don't throw Arkellie in there for it? Well, this was 1999. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was pre. Arkelly hadn't been found guilty yet. Right. But people knew. People knew. Yeah.

Security officers are a focus in Mexico massacre. Attorney General Jorge Madrozo Quaylar, who is leading the investigation in the killings of 45 unarmed Indians in a southern mountain village on Monday said today that federal agents are questioning top security officials in the area. He did not rule out that some may be charged with criminal negligence. Mr. Madraso said federal investigators pursuing names and descriptions provided by survivors had identified nine suspects and planned to arrest them.

He said all suspects are Indian villagers from Chanalo, the Highland Village in Chiapas state where the killings take place. Most of the dead were women and small children, Mr. Madraso, echo the words of President Ernesto Zadillo, calling the massacre a barbarous and primitive act and assailants a gang of criminals. I think this is a political context. Yeah. So going down a little on there, Ciappas has been gripped for years with tensions between

Indian residents and the government, and the Indians' cause has been taken up by a group that calls itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Many victims were associated with the grassroots organization in Chanalo that supports the Zapatistas and seeing greater justice and fair treatment for Indians. Indians. After 48 hours of silence, Zapatista rebels of Chiapas, and the leader sub-commander Marcos is issued a communicate blaming President Zadio and a top advisor, Interior Minister Emilio Chafayette, Chia Fett, for the violence. If you were a left-wing kid in the 90s, there's likely that you had a Zapatista T-shirt. I did in the 90s and 2000s. I mean, they were

heroic. They were guerrillas fighting on behalf of downtrod and indigenous people in the highlands of southern Mexico. And they also were like, had a very hopeful ideology and

you know, kind of communal anarchist approach to organizing the territory and also weren't like, you know, didn't have the same reputation for brutal violence as other guerrilla groups. So, I mean, like, the Zapatises are a huge thing among left-wingers. I mean, the American Left was far smaller and more subculture than was then.

But the Zapatis was a very big part of it. You don't hear that much more. I mean, Dave kind of wound up their insurgency and came to an agreement with the government. But, yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to go back and look into them. I don't know if Subcomand de Marcos, you might have. seen as like kind of iconic pictures of him with the mask and the pipe. I'm not sure if his identity ever came out. I don't think he was from Chiapas. He was likely a academic from the

northern part of the country who kind of went down there out of sympathy for the indigenous people. But yeah, it's really interesting stuff. And I was fascinated with it and a supporter of the Zapatistas. Let's see what else we got. In the shift by U.S. That's boring. This is about U.S. aid. Jurors, oh, this is interesting. Jurors will consider execution of Nichols, even though the jury in the Oklahoma City bombing case of Terrell Nichols

did not conclude that he intended to kill anyone when he conspired to build the bomb that killed 168 people, a federal judge ruled that the prosecutors could ask jurors to sentence Mr. Nichols' death. Saying the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of seeming inconsistent jury verdicts, Judge Richard P. Match of Farrell District Court in Denver set the stage for a battle beginning on Monday as prosecutors present testimony

from relatives of those killed in the bombing. I don't think Nichols did not get the death penalty, right? Only he didn't. McVeigh got the death penalty. Nichols got sentenced to life, I believe. So he's still serving in federal prison. Maybe the president will pardon him too. Yeah, well, I mean,

that probably has a lot of fans in this administration. Yeah, I mean, we've discussed the Oklahoma City bombing on this podcast before. It was the worst terrorist attack in the United States until 9-11, carried about by far-right extremists with connections to neo-Nazism. And, you know, arguably, and they were responding to the events in Waco.

It was kind of revenge for Waco. I think that, you know, there's a lot of strands of that brand of extremism and modern right-wing populism. But you can read my book or you can read Kathleen Buleau's books to get more of that information. Anyway, anything else look interesting to you here? Just this little headline about woke toys, more toys are reflecting disabled children's needs, which is very good, which, you know, it's a good thing. We're in favor of that on this podcast.

that disabled kids have toys that reflect their experiences. But I, you know, the 90s were not as, there's just like, I think 90s nostalgia would have you, I think the 90s were the harmonious decade. But as, you know, you've written, John, as I think, you know, part of the thesis of this podcast, that that's very much not the case. Yeah.

And yet, and yet, you know, I think people probably shrugged at this, right? Yeah. That, like, they're almost certainly were people who saw this and were annoyed by it. But, like, it wasn't a, there wasn't a whole political infrastructure that could turn your annoyance into a news cycle. Right. Yeah.

No, that's exactly right. Yeah, they had these culture war issues, but they weren't, like, so vehemently politicized the way they are now. And turned into, like, aren't you sick of the woke thing? Like, who gives a shit? Okay, they put a doll in a wheelchair. It's not the end of the world that's upsetting to you. Or they made a black doll or there's a black TV character? I don't understand it.

Anyway, we've discussed this many times. We've discussed as many times. Wag the dog. John, had you seen this before? I had. I saw it when I was a kid. I don't think I saw it in theaters.

I think it was a rental, family rental movie night type situation. And when I was a kid, I thought it was really clever. I mean, you know, I was 12. I was probably just becoming interested in politics

and, you know, this kind of cynicism of the movie. And it's, it's clever. self-regard is something that is a young adolescent you're attracted to. So I kind of had it, I think, in higher regard. I had never re-watched it for, what, 30 years. So watching this movie again, I was shocked with how bad it was. I was really disappointed with it, and I thought

its satire was so toothless. And I'm so surprised that when you look at its reception of time. And even still, people consider this to be one of the classics of American political satire. Which is insane to me. It's crap. It's crap. I mean, like, okay, and it's got two great actors, obviously Hoffman and Denierro legends. The director, Barry Levinson, I have a mixed relationship with Barry Levinson's films. I think a lot of them are sentimental crap. I think Avalon is garbage. I think Rain Man is offensively terrible. I think that

let's see. Toys, which everyone hated and is a bad movie, I think I have more of a soft spot for some of his other movies. We talked about this on the podcast. We talked about toys on the podcast. I thought that was, it was strange. It was strange, but it still had his kind of sentimentality in it, right?

Right. Yeah. And Good Morning Vietnam. A same thing. It's like, I don't even know how to describe it. he has an extremely, okay, and I think that you have the sentimental side of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, is the other side, which is a kind of very naive cynicism. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's most prominent American filmmakers, and that they are almost like the, even more than Spielberg. Spielberg is, I think, he's obviously like the most prominent American filmmaker who is a boomer. But I would describe Zemeckis and Levinson as specifically boomer filmmakers, if that makes sense.

Yeah, right? Like, they represent like the preoccupations of their side of that, of the white middle class part of that generation of cohort. And so Zemeckis has the. same sentimentality or a similar kind of sentimentality as Levinton. And Zemeckis also has the kind of acid cynicism. I think for Zemeckis, it's much more acid. Like it's much more, it can be more sharp-edged and even disturbing at times. I think Zemachus is a little anarchic in a way that Levinson is not. But it's a similar, they're operating on a similar wavelength. And yes, to sort of, I would like you to please continue, but the naive cynicism is, yeah.

Semeckis directed one of the greatest films of all time who framed Roger Rabbit. So I give him, I give him a break. Yeah, you know, I know exactly what you mean. Like, I think that there's a, there's the baby boomer sentimentalism about their childhoods and the loss of the innocence of America at that time really comes through in Levinson's films. And then you have this. unearned skepticism about politics, which is not exactly right or left. I mean, it has some

resonances, obviously, in the new left and the hippies, and it's got some right-wing stuff with, you know, the new right and Reagan. It's just this kind of childish misunderstanding of what's going on in government and cynicism about it, which is a lack of intellectual curiosity about it. It's not to say that, you know, Washington, D.C. is a wonderful place and there's not horrible things going on. But the kind of studied ignorance about a real processes of politics in this movie and just saying, well, it's kind of like showbiz, isn't it? I mean, okay, that is a sophomoric interpretation. Of course.

Of course. It's just so level one and simplistic that a war could be kind of manufactured. and what that would look like. And it kind of like the way the movie has this kind of scampish, isn't this kind of cute thing going on with it too, I think undercuts the moral of the movie and just kind of makes it smug and thinks it's very clever. And it's like, aha, Albania, who's ever heard of Albania? I mean, my God, you know, the events in the Balkans were going on at this movie.

and in Kosovo was a few years later it's like it's like that's not albania is not that obscure of a place right like it doesn't like this whole idea that anything Americans could be told anything about it and like I just couldn't believe the the satire couldn't believe the depiction of it unlike okay so um unlike say you know uh i don't know ianucci stuff which not all great but like you know, Veep is a great example of satire that both is farcical but rings true and is actually curious about what life in Washington is actually like. Yes. And this one is not.

It's so superficial and it's like Hollywood, politics, what's the difference? It's just like, I don't know what, it's like a bad comedian's bit. It feels very Bill Maher, who was a big thing at the time. it feels very, I don't know, like a bad, yeah, it's just lazy. And I just thought it's depiction of like this idea that a war could be jended up. It's true. I mean, in American history, that has happened and it didn't happen long after that, you know, with, you know, people said that was going on during the Lewinsky scandal. Remember the main, John.

Right. It was the main. And then you have this thing with the Iraq war. And I think the actual things that happen are so much more sinister and more interesting. actually and the way their public response to the public gets manipulated or wants to be manipulated is so much more interesting than this movie. I think it's just like, I don't know

if this is a nerdy opinion, but I'm just like, dude, the news is better than this movie. Yeah. You know what I mean? It doesn't improve on reading in the news. So two, a couple thoughts. First of all, I completely agree with you about the, how lazy

this film is. When I was watching it, so to go to to go to your analogy to veep or to um uh the thick of it um just the work of ianucci even death of stalin uh a film that i like what is what what i think is that the foundation of ianucci's work is an actual understanding of the institutions he's he's he's talking about right so like i when i remember when i first saw death of stalin i just actually read a biography of Stalin. And I was like struck by how much that movie is a basically accurate depiction of what happened after Stalin died. And an accurate depiction of Stalin as a person. It's like heightened and

comedic and streamlined for for movies purposes. But like it, it reflects reality. Veep is a is more less like a pretty good depiction of what working in the Oval Office is like that is heightened for comedic purposes. And if you met staffers in D.C. that show absolutely nail. them. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. If you, yeah, 100%, right? Like, Jonah Ryan is a, is a recognizable guy. Yeah, we've all met at Jonah Ryan. Yeah. But this movie doesn't seem to have any actual knowledge of, yeah, which is a White House, of an Oval Office, of a communications, of the White House communications office, of the, of the kinds of people and personalities who are around this. You know, for instance, just to just off the top of my head, if a face,

Amos Hollywood producer had come to the White House to meet with the communications team, that'd be on the public logs, right? Like, any, any half intelligent journalists would have immediately picked up that something weird was happening, just from that. Also, like, they, like, if, if the, the U.S. could not make something up about Albania without, uh, you know, trying to, well, they do kind of, like, when they did the Iraq war, they had to, like, suborn, they did to do a lot of work to, like, suborn the intelligence community and then convince them to sell the story to journalists.

This movie just like has so many gaps where it's like they can't just like start a war with Albania. Like Albania's representatives would speak to the press, right? Exactly. I'd speak to the press. There'd be American journalists trying to figure out what's happening. Yeah. Like there'd be, you know, journalists are fame hounds and you'd have people wanting to go to

the front to cover the war in Albania, right? Like it'd make a career. yeah um there's all this there's all this just practical stuff that the movie doesn't even really consider like dismisses and and presents it as it just a matter of like you know having the right that's how it works yeah of course that's how it works it's just the matter of showing the right commercials having the right tv ads and and and you got it it's like i think i said this to you after i watched it uh over text this movie is both extremely cynical but not cynical enough in a funny way, right? Like extremely cynical and that it has its view that you can

convince the American public of anything. Um, but not cynical enough in how like the characters in Wag the Dog aren't, are trying not to actually harm anyone. Like they want to do this without anyone without any loss of life. But something like I referenced, I joked about remember the main a second ago, like that was an actual, a couple hundred American see. man died as a result of basically an industrial accident. And then policymakers were like, oh, we can use this to fight an imperialist war, which is like, which is profoundly immoral, a really awful thing. And you could almost imagine a version of this movie that had properly calibrated cynicism. And that properly calibrated cynicism would be based off of an actual

understanding of how these things have gone down in the past, right? Like, David Mamet, if he knew anything, and like, you know, people like Mamet, and he's very lyrical, obviously. But like, one of my frustrations about his work is that he doesn't appear to like to know anything other than discourse. Right. Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, well, he's, you know, he has like playwright brain. Yes. And like this movie, this movie demonstrates it where it's like, it kind of reduces everything to a chamber drama and reduces everything to kind of very simple. simplistic concepts that can be dramatized on stage with a few actors and a few, you know,

in a short period of time and a few acts. So he, and I think playwrights often simplify things by necessity. So he really takes that approach. And they almost turn things, give things kind of a fable quality, right, or an allegorical quality where things stand for other things or highly stylized versions of it. And you can see that all over this movie, except it's just not well done. Look, I mean, like, yeah, I don't need things to be hyper-realistic. I can imagine a stylized movie about the White House that, that, you know, still rings true. But the stylization just, the problem is that this movie is so self-satisfied

and presents itself as realistic. It's not, that it's not farcical enough to be like, well, obviously like no one would believe this. It, it's presenting itself as an extremely clever skewering of what actually happens. And I think that's really obnoxious. Yeah. Yeah. Like this, yeah, because this isn't what actually happens. Like what actually happens is that there are real events. Like things do happen. Like part of what made the Iraq war, right? So dismaying in addition to its like immorality of just like an aggressive war was like a real thing that happened. 9-11 had happened right right well like yeah you know thousands of people were killed and the country was looking for a way to you know bring people to justice for what was a crime right and the administration

in its cynicism was like no we can use this to carry out this goal right right pursue this ideological goal um and it was a disaster and like you there's ways of dramatizing that and in fact in the loop great film. Another Yanucci. There are ways of dramatizing that dynamic of cynical people in power utilizing real tragedies to pursue their goals that I think we do a better job of scuring than this, which is sort of fabricating. Like, I'll say this. Right now, you alluded to this, the current administration is kind of trying to manufacture war with Venezuela, you know, claiming that the narco-terrorist and blah, blah, blah, and no one's buying it. Yeah.

Because people are like, this is stupid. Yeah. It takes a lot of know-how and work and political knowledge to do this. And that's why the staff of the Bush administration had all this amazing institutional experience in Washington were able to put that together. It was a terrible feat, but it was a feat. And the other thing is, as you say, this movie encourages this idiotic cynicism that looks at politics and doesn't realize that politicians don't control events. This suggests that anything can be spun, that anything can be dealt with.

But there are crises that politicians, like the Iraq War was a failure and a debacle that fundamentally changed American politics. there was no Donald Trump without the Iraq war, right? It unseeded all of the clever people, the smug people, who thought that they had pulled off something, you know, world historical and great through their own industry and intelligence, are no longer in the driver's seat in the GOP. That's in part because of the Iraq War. The public does punish people for the failures of politics.

Sometimes they're wrong people, sometimes it's unwise. punishes them, but it's like, you know, this degenerates people's understanding of politics because it doesn't see how these processes actually play out. Yeah, it's possible for people to do things, to lie, to create false impressions. And then those create consequences. Like, like that creates blowback, those creates crises, that creates political coalitions collapsing, disasters crises that politics then has to respond to the idea that a bunch of it's it's it's it's it's it's almost like what it is is it's the same it's you know we've talked about this many times on the podcast where like there's this idea in the 90s that

well you know special operators and the U.S. military have this all powerful thing and we can reach to any part of the world and kill it. anybody and you know like the united states is unstoppable it's it's a fable that even though it's supposed to be cynical about u.s power is very naive about the united states and the power of the u.s. government it's like well they can kind of do what they want and make the narrative they want it's like no they're not all powerful they're not all powerful and it's the same thing like in these movies where it's like oh yeah they got this terrorist and that that attitude i've talked about this before shaped my idea of what would happen after nine

11, then you realize, oh, like, we're not this omniscient, omnipotent power that can find anybody overnight, you know, like we don't have these powers to change reality, to, we lose wars, we have failures. There are debacles in American cases that get forgotten. So I think it's the flip side, even though it's pretending to be cynical about the United States, it paints a too rosy picture, or it paints it. self-satisfied picture of American capabilities and power. They're like, well, between our smart guys in DC and our smart guys in Hollywood,

we can kind of do anything. It's stupid. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's right. Self-flattering of the movie industry, especially. They're like, huh-ha, yeah. It's extremely self-flattering of the movie industry, which is presented as basically

omniscient, right, like capable of doing whatever they want to their producer. And I get that it's supposed to be satirical. And I feel like it might even be a better satire of like Hollywood hubris than anything in Washington. But it is funny to watch this sort of kind of like this movie with a quite high view, it seems, of producers. In the present, when it feels like the movie industry is struggling to make money and anything it isn't like an IP cast grab. Yeah. Yeah. To say some, I guess, positive things about the movie, I do think that De Niro and Hoffman give good performances, not like anything close to their best, but like they're enjoyable to watch on the screen. Again, Mammitt's a great writer, even if I think the substance isn't always there. And so it's not like the film was unpleasant to watch, right? Like you're not watching anything that's like poorly put together. it's an annoying movie it's annoying and but yeah the script is is is is I wouldn't say charming but it moves yeah it's got snappy dialogue it moves and I'll say I thought I do I did

think the entire sequence of Woody Harrelson was just funny it was like funny that that they get this soldier who they think is like it's a sort of special operator and he turns out just to be like a psychotic uh uh sex criminal yeah I'll say this as well about the movie structure it feels to me as if it kind of falls apart at the end like precisely because there isn't that much in the way of conflict leading to any kind of resolution it's like they're successful with their scam and it's like the movie doesn't know how to end it and so it kind of just peters out a little bit um you would think there are moments in the film which would like which the logic of it suggests that they're about to get found out and you can kind of sense that

no one knows how they would write the film if they got found out, like, what would it look like for this to get found out? I was thinking the whole time that, you know, this would be obviously the biggest and most consequential scandal in American history. If an administration got caught manufacturing a fake war in this manner, it would be a massive scandal. even the Iraq war, which was a manufactured war, because it's a response to real stuff, you can still find people like defending it, right? And it was kind of a huge scandal. Like, as you said, it transformed American politics.

You know, there's a reason why no one hears about George SEPB. Bush anymore while he's basically faded into obscurity. And there's not even like Bush defenders. Like even the never Trump types who worked in the Bush administration. like they're like cheapish yeah yeah it was not a great idea yeah there's no one there it's very hard to mount a I'm sure people some people privately would say I am like a revision like I think the Iraq war actually was a good idea but like it's very hard to publicly mount that case people try to trot that article every every so often it gets shot down very

quickly. It's not, yeah, it's just, it's just been, it's not a serious position in American politics anymore. Right. Right. Anything else to say about this movie? I don't, I don't, I don't know. I just, I'm just disappointed with it. Well, I mean, I was young when I watched it, so I could give myself a break. But yeah, I think that this movie does not deserve its reputation as a classic of American political satire. And I think, People should know that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's actually a testament to how in cinema, at least,

there actually isn't that much great political satire that this movie somehow stands as a classic. What a smart movie. Wow, Wag the Dog. Isn't it just like Wag the Dog? Isn't it just like Wag the Dog? No. Shut up.

Yeah. I'm trying to look up to see what people consider the best. cinematic, political satires, comedy films. It's Dr. Strangelove, probably, right? Dr. Strangelove has to be at the top. Yeah. And people compare this movie, Dr. Strangelove. Which is insane.

It's insane. And Dr. Strangelove, again, is farcical. It's maybe not as realistic as a Nucci movie, is maybe more impressionistic or stylized or whatever you want to call it, but is a lot better and a lot funnier. And just, I don't think that's a perfect movie either. I have, when we talked about it, I had my qualms about it, but like, it's definitely a finer film than this. You know, people are, as far as things that people, American political satires, I'm looking at various lists, people put, don't look up on there, which see more movies.

Well, maybe it's just a bad genre. Look at, I mean, that's a terrible, all the examples are bad. Yeah. Self-satisfied and bad. What else is there? There's, there's, I mean, I'd say, I'd say, you. I'd say it's far as modern stuff goes, Veep is the great

like modern political satire. But again, going back where we said earlier, Veep is a, is a series. It actually seems to understand what it's trying to satirize and is looking for, sorry. We got to do Bullworth.

We got to do Bullworth. Yeah. I've never seen it. I've only listened to the song, Ghetto Superstar. Yeah. Well, we'll have fun watching it. Yeah. No, it's a lot of these movies are bad.

Yeah. The candidate is kind of a satire. Primary colors is pretty good. That's not a satire. That's not a satire. That's a comic telling of a true story kind of. Right. And I wouldn't call the candidate a satire.

It also kind of a drama. It's a drama with comedic elements. Canadian Bacon is a satire, which was not great. But it was kind of cute. My fellow Americans, hey, we miss this movie. Oh, that's a comedy with, I remember that movie. It's about the three former presidents who go. on adventure together.

Election. Election. There you go. Man of the year. Which, which, you know, the interesting thing about election, right, is that it's, it's, it's not aimed at the heights of national politics. It's about, like, a school election, right? It's like, it's a microcosm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the dynamics of this, you kind of see American politics writ large, which is maybe a smarter approach. Yeah. Now, a lot of these films are sort of. crap. Let's just face it. And you know, I'm going to say real quick, I actually remember my fellow Americans. I think I saw this on TV when I was a kid. Me too. I have like, I have like a mental image of them like in a bath, like trying to take a piss in the bathroom. That's like a scene in the

film. And they're fighting with each other the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to rewatch that movie and see if it holds out. Maybe we could do that out of the page. Yeah, maybe. Just to watch, just Dave is another one. Yeah, Dave. Didn't we do Dave? We didn't do Dave. I'm like, you see, like, what this show is doing is giving me, like, Mandela effect brain where I'm like, they're, I'm inventing movies.

I'm inventing movies we watched. I'm like, wasn't there, like, man of the year, I thought there was a movie from the 90s with Robin Williams that he was president, but I'm mixing up with the American president and Dave, I'm mixing up like three different things in my head. it's all just turning into one vague film, this whole podcast. There's another movie coming up, Dick, which is Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, and Dan Hadea. Two high school girls wander off during a class trip to the White House and meet President Richard Nixon. They've become the official dog walkers for Nixon's dog checkers and become a secret advisors during the Watergate scandal.

I think we got to, we kind of got to watch this. people like this movie i've never seen it uh yeah let's do it the idea of two teenage girls advising nixon during watergate is very entertaining to me so um that sounds good yeah so just looking at this list of political satires it's not there's there's not that many and most of them aren't very great and the ones that are great are sort of not necessarily focused on like national american politics which i think is the right the right way to go about this if you're going to do it. All right. I think you can kind of guess our recommendation from this. I think Wag the Dog is worth watching as a historical curiosity. Like if you want to just sort of like get a survey of the 90,

of how people thought about politics in the 90s or like what what you might have heard in a green room or at a cocktail party, like Wag the Dog is useful in that sense. But as as a political satire, some particularly good. And as a movie, it kind of falls apart after the first two acts. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, like, maybe if you're not, but everybody who's listening to this show is, like, a big politics nerd. So, like, maybe if you're not that hung up on, on, on, like, the, the problems with this depiction of politics, you might enjoy it more, but then you're in, okay, I'm sorry, I'm not going to say what I'm going to say. I was going to say then you're an idiot, but like, I mean,

To a certain extent, it's true. Like, I don't think that this film is directed at a, at a viewer who is knowledgeable. It's sort of insulting the intelligence of the viewer. That's my last comment on it. All right. That is our episode on Why the Dog. As always, you can find this show wherever you listen to your podcast. That's Apple Podcast.

That's Google Podcast. That's Spotify. Wherever you find your podcast, you can find us. Please leave a rating and review wherever that is that you find your podcast. It helps other people find the show. I really should one of these days figure out how many people actually listen to this show. I'm always meeting folks who listen to the show. So I kind of feel like the reach might be larger than I think, but I have no idea.

But leave a comment and a review so that the reach increases. You can reach out to us for comment or observation at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. That's unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, we have an email from Brian titled A Real Affinity with Made for HBO Political Thrillers. Hi, guys, day one listener, but not yet a Patreon subscriber. I have a true love for the made for HBO films of the 80s and 90s, with the enemy within, which we covered on this podcast, Barbarians at the gate, the late shift, Tuskegee Airmen, a movie I've watched. And Fatherland, another movie we've done on this podcast, serving as real preteen with cable core memories.

They were never incredible movies, but they were always well made, well casted, and at least a good hang for an afternoon. The Second Civil War, which I have yet to watch, but we have done an episode on, is also on the list. They still churn these out in the political nature of releases to Still a ThruLine. I just watched the Pentagon Wars on HBO Max and enjoyed it, especially because of that cast. What other made for HBO classics are on your list, if not for the main feed, then for the Patreon? And then this will get me to getting to air as a question to discuss. Oh, this question is going to get him to get a Patreon membership. Made for, what other made for?

So one I really like is conspiracy, which is, um, which is a great film about the, I didn't realize that's even made for TV. That's a made for TV, HBO movie about the, what's it, what's it called? The Vonsay Conference, where they plan the Holocaust. Where they play in the Holocaust. That one has, it has Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci.

It has like a totally stat cast. Yeah. And it's very well made. Great script, really well made, chilling movie. One of the best. Also, a huge classic in a movie that I love from that, from that era and that, an HBO. is RCAO 281, which is a movie about the making of Citizen Kane in Wilson Welles,

and it's starring Liv Schreiber and James Cromwell and Melanie Griffith and John Malkovich as Manc. I think it's actually better than Mank as a telling of that story, and it's sort of more straightforward and less into itself as a movie. I really like it. I think it's great. And I, you know, there are so many other of those movies that I really love. But those two conspiracy and RKO281, RKO2 at what rocks. I'll have to check out RKO 281 because I don't, I don't like Mank. I didn't like Mank very much. Yeah, no, it's way better than Mank.

And it's like, it's incredible that it like knocks Mank out of the water. Yeah, I can't think of any more on the top of my head. I really enjoyed all the way, which is about, which is, Um, uh, stars, uh, what's his name? Brian Cranston as, uh, Lyndon Johnson, uh, and it's sort of, it's about the effort to pass civil rights out. Oh, I saw that. That's good.

Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Um, it's trying to see, trying to think of anything with the 90s, which really were that, really was that, not the, um, really great one. The 90s was the, uh, you know, the, uh, you know, the. The Golden Age. Yeah, heyday of this kind of movie.

Amistad. The Amistad is a Hollywood. Hollywood, Baby. Spielberg. Why is it listed here? I don't know. I think I saw their Stalin movie. I don't think it's that great.

Oh, you know what's really good? Okay, here's my other one. This is a great movie. Something the Lord made, which is Most Deaf and, what's his name? Alan Rickman. And it's about two pioneers in heart surgery, Alfred Bylock and Vivian Thomas, Vivian Thomas being a black man who basically sort of like created modern heart

surgery. Great movie. Oh, you know what I actually really like? The 1996 Gotti movie is another HBO movie because it's got basically the entire cast of the Sopranos before the Sopranos went, get started so it's just fun to watch and it's pretty good actually like it's way better than the fucking uh john travolta goddi movie again you know the hbo killed it i like it i think it's the john travolta godi movie is very funny though it has the scene where he lists the five

boroughs of new york you know them all manhattan brooklyn queens the bronx stat island i just find that very funny It's like, yeah, remember watching a movie about John Goddough? We got it. Yeah. Yeah, no, that movie was not good. But the Gotti made for TV movies is fine. I'm a more faithful telling of the tale, I think.

So there are some, there are some choices, some gems. They're also, you know, the original series. There's John Adams, which is like one of my favorite mini series of all time. Casting Paul Giamatti as John Adams is just the most hilarious. choice possible. But it obviously works. Band of Brothers obviously is great. Band of brothers.

Everybody knows about that. Another movie behind the Candelabra, which is Stephen Soderberg. It's quite good. I didn't realize that was at HBO either. That's the HBO. I was the HBO original, yeah. Some of these things just, I remember them as being

just movies, but they were TV movies. Yeah, I mean, there's some there's some really good ones and there's some real stinkers but just to avoid those yeah all right that great question thank you for asking us about HBO movies there are there are may way more than you think um i just i'm i'm uh just flipped through a list there's a movie called blind justice canaan a mysterious gunfighter left nearly blind from civil war combat roams through mexico with the baby he has sworn to protect oh this is just a lone wolf and cub Yeah, that sounds like, right.

I might watch this. This is something I'll watch. That sounds up your alley. All right. Thank you, Brian, for the email. And as always, you can reach us an unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. Episodes of this podcast come out roughly every two weeks.

And so we will see you then with, we got to go back in time a little bit. There are other movies in 97 we miss. So we're going to go back in time with murder at 1600. A T&T classic. Oh, another made for TV movie, right? Not a made for TV movie, but a movie that it would air in like T&T or like the USA Network on like a Sunday afternoon. It's directed by Dwight H. Little.

I have no idea who that is. In stars, Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane, Ann Allen Alda and Ronnie Cox. A lot of great actors. Also Dennis Miller. That's who I was trying to think of, like, bad political jokes when I was talking about Wag the Dog. Who Dennis Miller is in Wank the Dog. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. No, sorry, Dennis Leary is in Wai, the Dog.

Well, same difference. All the-Same difference, yeah. Yeah. Quick plot synopsis. A secretary is found dead in a White House bathroom during international crisis, and Detective Harlan Regis is in charge of the investigation. Despite resistance from the Secret Service, Regis partners with Agent Nina Chan. As political tensions rise, they learned that the crime could be part of an elaborate cover-up. Framed as traitors, the pair plus Regis's partner, break into the White House in order to expose the true culprit.

This isn't a good movie. Diane Lane looks incredible in it. I just got to say that. So that's the reason to watch it. Two hours of Diane Lane. So that's our next film. On the main feed on the Patreon, we haven't, what are we covering next on the Patreon? we didn't we've been kicking the can on that for some time for a week we kicked the can for a week no i think it's been

like two weeks though um i don't know i i can't think of anything we've done um i don't know jemal all right i'm going to i'm going to bring up my list of patreon movies i'll just choose something from here yeah um well can we let's see can we discuss it a little bit we can discuss it we'll discuss it after the show I actually have a movie I want to watch I just there are two there are two on the list here that I think would be fun

so I'll I'll send those your way okay so don't have an upcoming Patreon movie there will be one yeah but you should still subscribe to the Patreon we do a weekly politics show we're talking about the the week's events and then we do our regular movie episodes

It's $5 a month. Episodes, that gets you four, basically six episodes of content on the Patreon every month. It's a great deal. You can find the Patreon at patreon.com slash unclear pod. And that's, that's it for this episode. For John Gant, I'm Jamal Bowie, and we will see you next time. You know, Thank you.