In 1997 Barry Levinson released the movie “Wag The Dog” in which a fictional President and his staff created a fake war to distract from the President’s sex scandal. About one month later the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski scandal broke, and a short time later, Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan they accused of making chemical weapons.
Republicans, led by Gingrich (he of multiple affairs), persistently pushed that Clinton was “Wagging the dog” – a line that was then picked up and spread by the media’s coverage of endless GOP charges.
Fast forward to 2018… Trump has made a big deal of Obama’s “red line” not being enforced and claimed his strength by bombing Syria in 2017. Since then, Syria has used chemical weapons against it’s own citizens multiple times – SEVEN TIMES just in 2018 so far.
Trump took NO ACTION in any of those.
But just days before Syria’s latest use of chemical weapons, Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen has a subpoena enforced against him, in which the FBI gained access to untold hundreds or thousands of documents, and opened news about many new Trump sexual scandals and payoffs to keep them quiet.
I’ve put together the following timeline that certainly seems to suggest this Trump bombing of Syria is more about “wagging the dog” than enforcing a “red line” he has largely ignored these last few months.
An equally important question to me is: will the Democrats push this question clearly and persistently enough to raise this valid question – Trump will clearly do anything to distract and obstruct from any credibility for all his illegal actions, and is this the latest example? Given the current leadership’s complete inability to wage tough political battle against someone who Tonya Hardings them on a constant basis, I doubt this will end up being anything but a positive for Trump…
(313 words)
Patrick On Politics 