I. Background Information Wag the Dog is a hilarious new satire movie directed by Barry Levinson. Ironic with the genre of the film as a comedy, it carries a serious and an eye-opening message about the relationship between politics and mass-market entertainment. This is one of Levinson's best films, and the screenplay, co-penned by noted writer David Mamet along with Hilary Henkin, is brilliantly on-target. The story begins with presentation of the premise which is the president of the United States is accused of having sex with a teen aged girl who belongs to an organization similar to the girl scouts and the election is less than two weeks away. A brief encounter with a Firefly Girl becomes public knowledge, and now his 17% lead is about to go downhill. The president's opponents get wind of the story and use it to their advantage. Thus, this led the president's Public Relations team to take action regarding the crisis. Winifred Ames played by Anne Heche, one of the President's top aides, calls in spin doctor extraordinary, Conrad Bream (Robert De Niro). Conrad goes to work immediately, thinking of the best way how to turn away the public's attention from the Firefly Girl issue. He came out with the idea to create another bigger issue for the public to think about and over power the bad publicity caused by the sex scandal. "Change the story, change the lead" is his motto, so he decides to manufacture a small, cost-effective war against Albania, which he euphemistically refers to as a pageant. Why he choose Albania of all the countries in the world because the name sounds sinister and no one in the United States knows anything about the country. Hence it will be easier for them to formulate a story about it that people will surely believe eventually. For the plan to manifest, Winifred Ames and Conrad Bream flew to Los Angeles to seek the help of a top