Wagging the Dog (again)...

 

 

 

"Hold on! I think I have seen this movie before!"

Back in 1997, a movie came out called Wag the Dog. It was about a president who just before his inauguration, found himself knee deep in a scandal. Instead of facing this scandal head on, he decided to hire a Hollywood expert and create a fake war. The purpose of this war was to divert attention away, far, far away from the scandal. It was great fun even if the movie did not do that well at the box office.

Flash forward to 1998. Then President Clinton seems to have been caught with his hand(s) in the cookie jar (so to speak). After multiple affairs, some rumored, some actual, "Slick Willie" decided to have some innocent sex (as some said) with a young intern in the Oval Office. When the President was found out, of course he lied about it. The lie was exposed thanks to a nasty little spot on a blue dress and the heat in the kitchen was turned up.

Then on August 7th 1998, some say by an act of mercy, al Qaeda, the terrorist group Clinton loved to ignore, bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Later that month, President Clinton authorized a missile attack against six terrorist compounds in Afghanistan and the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory in Khartoum. Although the Administration said at the time the factory housed chemical weapons for potential use by terrorists, many believe it was just an aspirin factory.

No big deal. And who cares if some Africans could not get much needed aspirins for a while. The important thing was two fold. First, it made us look like we did something. You know - taught the bad guys as lesson. Second (and much, much more important), it shifted the focus (albeit temporary) off the Monica scandal. Wag the Dog.

Now we have our Nobel Prize winning president getting ready to launch a barrage of cruise missiles on as many as fifty targets in Syria. It is thought that as many as 200 missiles might be fired at a total cost to the taxpayers of $300M. We want to hit Assad hard, but not too hard. We want to send a message, but not too strong of a message. We need to show the world that killing people with chemical munitions is wrong, but using conventional munitions to kill 100,000 citizens is tolerable.

However, the most important reason to spend $300M on cruise missiles and risk a larger regional war is this - the short attention span folks in our great country will forget all about the NSA, IRS, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Debt Ceiling, Lack of Budget, Bad Jobs Reports, and so on. For a short period of time around Labor Day, we will wag that doggie like he has not been wagged for many years.

I wish some wise advisor in the White House would remind our Noble Prize winner of one basic fact of parenthood. Bad behavior deserves a swift and appropriate response - not two years after the behavior started. In addition, a follow up lesson would be this. If you are going to mess with a hornets nest, make sure you are not the one to get stung. To me, Syria, as well as the entire Middle East, is nothing more than one big hornet's nest.