Wag the Dog Monologues

Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.

This is NOTHING.

It's all, you know, thinking ahead thinking ahead.

Yea, it's like a plumber: do your job right and nobody should notice. But when you fuck it up, everything gets full of shit.

Look at that! That is a complete fucking fraud, and it looks a hundred percent real. It's the best work I've ever done in my life, because it's so honest.

The war isn't over 'til I say it's over. This is my picture - this is NOT the CIA's picture. You think you're in a tight spot now? Alright, Conrad, try making The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse - tell 'im, King.

Hear what he's saying? Three of the horseman DIED. Two weeks before the end of principal photography. This is NOTHING. This is nothing, this is - this is - this is just, "Act One, The War". Now we really do need an Act Two.

Big mistake, big mistake. You gotta bring them in by stages. Big mistake to reveal Schumann before the election.

Sweetheart, Schumann is the shark. Okay? Schumann is Jaws, you know? You have to tease them. You gotta tease them. You don't put Jaws in the first reel of the movie. It's the contract, sweetheart. The contract of the election, whether they know it or not, is "Vote for me Tuesday, Wednesday I'll produce Schumann." See, that's what they're paying their seven bucks for.

Fuck the world. Try a ten a.m. script meeting, coked to the gills, no sleep and you haven't even read the treatment.

This is nothing! Piece of cake! Producing is being a samurai warrior. They pay you day in, day out for years so that one day when called upon, you can respond, your training at its peak, and save the day!

You take the fruit of forty years - hard lessons, mistakes - and you call it wisdom.

When it's cooking, it's cooking.

This is politics at its finest.

Haven't had this much fun since live TV!

You know, Connie? I felt very much at home in there. Simple quirk of fate. I could have gone this way. It's all a change in wardrobe.

You know, you can't save the world. All you can do is try.

They're war slogans, Mr. Motss. We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. You know why? That's show business. That's why we're here. Naked girl covered in Napalm. 'V for Victory'. Five Marines raising the flag, Mt. Suribachi. You remember the picture 50 years from now, you'll have forgotten the war. The Gulf War, smart bomb falling down a chimney. 2500 missions a day, 100 days. ONE video of ONE bomb Mr. Motts, the American people bought that war. War is show business - that's why we're here.

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

You watched the Gulf War, what do you see day after day? The one smart bomb falling down the chimney. The truth? I was in the building when we shot that shot - we shot in a studio, Falls Church, Virginia. One-tenth scale model of a building.

Well, I have, too. Would you do it again…? Isn't that why you're here? I guess so. And if you go to war again, who is it going to be against? Your "ability to fight a Two-ocean War" against who? Sweden and Togo? Who you sitting here to Go To War Against? That time has passed. It's passed. It's over. The war of the future is nuclear terrorism. It is and it will be against a small group of dissidents who, unbeknownst, perhaps, to their own governments, have blah blah blah. And to go to that war, you've got to be prepared. You have to be alert, and the public has to be alert. Cause that is the war of the future, and if you're not gearing up, to fight that war, eventually the axe will fall. And you're gonna be out in the street. And you can call this a "drill," or you can call it "job security," or you can call it anything you like. But I got one for you: you said, "Go to war to protect your Way of Life," well, Chuck, this is your way of life. Isn't it? And if there ain't no war, then you, my friend, can go home and prematurely take up golf. Because there ain't no war but ours.

They could come to your house in the middle of the night and kill you.

What difference does it make if it's true? If it's a story and it breaks, they're gonna run with it.

Well, if Kissinger can win the Peace Prize, I wouldn't be surprised to wake up and find out I'd won the Preakness.

We're not gonna have a war, we're gonna have the appearance of a war.

Now folks, folks, this is a shitty business and it needs no ghosts come from the grave to tell us that but Lord willing and Jesus tarries eight days from now I'm going to be taking you folks into the second term. Wait 'til you hear the speech tonight, the 303 speech - great!

I'm doing my job too and let me ask you something. Let me ask you a simple question. Why do people go to war? Why do they go to war?