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Jul 8, 2018 · Wag the dog can be used as a verb or an adjective. A strategy can be referred to as “a real wag the dog tactic,” or you can say that “The prime minister is wagging the dog with this accusation.”. It can also be used as a hashtag to call attention to a person’s use of this strategy.
A 1997 film, directed by Barry Levinson, brought about a shortened version of the idiom, and added a new meaning. In the film, titled Wag the Dog, fictional political fixers orchestrate the invasion of a country in order to distract from a presidential sex scandal. As the movie was released shortly before President Clinton was embroiled in a ...
The phrase “wag the dog” refers to a strategy where a political leader engages in diversionary tactics—often involving military action or another high-stakes maneuver—to distract the public from a pending or existing scandal, crisis, or failure. The term gained mainstream prominence from the 1997 film of the same name, which satirized ...
Wag the dog is, as a political term, the act of creating a diversion from a damaging issue usually through military force. It stems from the generic use of the term to mean a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more important one (the dog). It is usually used by a politician when they are in a scandal, in hopes ...
Mistake #1: Using it in the wrong context. The idiom “wag the dog” refers to a situation where someone creates a distraction from something important by focusing on something less significant. It’s often used in politics or media to describe situations where attention is diverted from an issue of importance.
Jan 14, 2020 · The phrase “tail wagging the dog” predated the movie, but it took on its current specific meaning in the political lexicon—concocting a national security crisis to distract from a domestic ...
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