Wag the Dog : A Novel [Paperback]

Larry Beinhart (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Thunders Mouth Nation Books (2005)
• ASIN: B0029EG6NA
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wag the Dog, top notch political satire., February 7, 2005

By 

A. Stander (Interlochen, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wag the Dog: A Novel (Paperback)

In its first iteration, Larry Beinhart's satirical novel based on the underlying events that led up to the first Gulf War was titled American Hero. The popular movie, loosely based on the book, was titled Wag the Dog. Now, ten years after its first release, the book has been re-published by Nations Books using the title from the film.

Wag the Dog opens with Jim Baker, advisor to the first President Bush, visiting the dying Lee Atwater, the architect of the Bush victory over Michael Dukakis and a brilliant campaign strategist who was never constrained by ethical considerations. Atwater gives Baker a letter that contains a strategy to save the sagging Bush presidency before the next election. Baker shares the letter and the strategy with the President: a made for television war. Top Hollywood director John Lincoln Beagle is recruited to direct this extravaganza that will be poured into American homes in glorious red, white, blue.

Of course, Beagle's involvement in this project is one of the most carefully guarded secrets in America. His agent puts out the story that he is ill and unavailable. Movie star Meggie Krebs, expecting to be featured in Beagle's next film, suddenly finds that she has been dumped. In an effort to build a breach of contract case, Maggie entices Joe Broz, a security firm consultant, away from his firm to help her gather information. When a former Beagle assistant is murdered, Maggie and Broz realize more is going on than just the avoidance of litigation. Enter the usual suspects: the CIA, the FBI, the military, and assorted contractors and their employees who are directed by high administration officials.

Wag the Dog is an intelligently conceived and skillfully written book. It is a very humorous, engaging read. And although a decade has passed since its first publication, it has as much relevancy and bite as it did when it first appeared. It is an important work of political satire that should be ranked with Animal Farm, Brave New World, and 1984. You will be entertained by the story and disquieted by the fact that our political "reality" has gone beyond the fictive world that some of our most imaginative writers can create.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WTC 1993, OKLAHOMA CITY, 9/11: PATTERNS THAT REPEAT, January 6, 2010

By 

C. Gurin "summerland3451" (Stuart, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wag the Dog: A Novel (Paperback)

In a post 9/11 world, where American innocence crumbled into the dust of the World Trade Center, the readers of this book, those of whom have finally come to realize what actually transpired that terrible September day, may be left shaking in their proverbial boots.

That's because the answers to more than one lingering question about the events of 9/11, and the Gulf War which preceded it, lay quietly buried between the pages of 1994's "American Hero", republished a decade (and an emotional eternity) later in 2004 as "Wag The Dog" .

Far from being a comedy, albeit prudently couched as political satire, this book is instead the stuff of nightmares.

After the book's 1994 introduction, a 1997 movie entitled "Wag The Dog", (loosely based on the book and classified as a comedy), was quickly rushed into production and appears to have represented an urgent attempt to quickly marginalize the "right between the eyes" impact of this book.

The book "Wag The Dog", by the extraordinarily prescient Larry Beinhart, is well written, well researched, and highly recommended reading