Wag The Dog

Wag the Dog is a 1997 black comedy film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, co-starring Anne Heche, Denis Leary and William H. Macy about a Washington spin doctor who, merely days before a presidential election, distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer to construct a fake war with Albania. The scheme enlists the aid of a country music singer, who creates several theme songs for the war; a "fad king"; and a costume designer, who helps create a fictional special forces unit to fight the war's supposed battles.

The film was produced and directed by Barry Levinson. The screenplay was credited to Hilary Henkin and David Mamet and is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, however, the film differs greatly from the book. In the book, the president is specifically George H. W. Bush, while in the movie the president is unnamed; the fake war operation is explicitly Desert Storm, and the war actually occurs, instead of being entirely falsified. An ironic twist was the release of the film just prior to President Clinton's sex scandal and the subsequent bombing of terrorists strongholds in Africa and the eruption of anarchy in Albania.