Wag the Dog Quotes

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

Stanley Motss: Well, yes but, our guy DID bring peace.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Yeah, but there wasn't a war.

Stanley Motss: All the greater accomplishment.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: 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.

Stanley Motss: Is that true?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: How the fuck do we know? You take my point?

[gunshot]

Stanley Motss: [referring to Schumann] Oh, god, he's dead. Oh, my god... oh, my... oh...

[opens door]

Stanley Motss: Wait a minute, wait a minute, he's not dead. He's all right...

[second gunshot]

Stanley Motss: Strike that.

[discovering that their "hero" is actually a convict]

Winifred Ames: When we asked for "special programs", they gave us special prisons.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Yeah, well... little bit of a difference.

Winifred Ames: Has he been in jail long?

Stanley Motss: [reading a file] Twelve years.

Winifred Ames: Does he have much longer to serve?

Stanley Motss: Mmm.

Winifred Ames: What did he do?

Stanley Motss: He raped a nun...

Winifred Ames: Oh, God. Oh, God. Jes... oh, God!

Stanley Motss: And...

Winifred Ames: "And"? I don't want to know an "and". Why is there an "and"?

Stanley Motss: Look, look, look, look, look. He's fine as long as he gets his medications...

Winifred Ames: And if he doesn't get his medications?

Stanley Motss: He's not fine.

Winifred Ames: Why Albania?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Why not?

Winifred Ames: What have they done to us?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: What have they done FOR us? What do you know about them?

Winifred Ames: Nothing.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.

[Commissioned to write a propaganda song about war with Albania]

Johnny Dean: Albania's hard to rhyme.

Tracy Lime: What would they do to me if I did tell someone about this?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: They could come to your house in the middle of the night and kill you.

Stanley Motss: It's all, you know, thinking ahead thinking ahead.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: It's like being a plumber.

Stanley Motss: 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.

Winifred Ames: [as their "war hero", William Schumann, slurps anti-psychotic pills out of her hand] What have you done to me?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Winifred...

Winifred Ames: *What* have you done to me?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: All combat takes place at night, in the rain, and at the junction of four map segments...

Winifred Ames: *What* are you going to do?

[Repeated line]

Stanley Motss: This is NOTHING.

Stanley Motss: 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.

Fad King: Three of the horseman died.

Stanley Motss: 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.

Stanley Motss: I bet you're great at chess.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: I would be if I could remember how all the pieces moved.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: You can't tell anyone about this.

Tracy Lime: It is like a union thing?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Stanley, don't do this. You're playing with your life here.

Stanley Motss: Fuck my life! I want the credit.

[repeated line]

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: I'm working on it.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Would you go to war to do that?

CIA Agent Mr. Young: I have.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: 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.

Stanley Motss: I'm in show business, yes? Why come to me?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Well I'll tell you why, Mr Motss. '54-40-Or Fight', what does that mean?

Stanley Motss: It's a slogan, it's from the, uh...

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: 'Remember the Maine'!

Stanley Motss: Oh yeah, that's from - that's gotta be from the, uh...

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too'!

Stanley Motss: No, that's not, uh...

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: 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.

Stanley Motss: And what do you for the President?

Stanley Motss: Oh, it's better than lovely. This guy made a deal with Governor Knee-High of Vermont...

Faye: [Corrects him] Senator Leahy.

Winifred Ames: How are we going to explain that when the world is watching?

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

Winifred Ames: So when we touch down tomorrow, Big Bird is going to meet Schumann at the airport, huh?

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

Winifred Ames: How so?

Stanley Motss: 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.

[repeated line]

TV Commercial: Why change horses in midstream?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: You're goddamn right, then it's got nothing to do with the B-3 Bomber!

John Levy: There is no B-3 bomber.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: [Knowingly] I just said that! There is no B-3 bomber, and I don't know why these rumors get started!

[the plane has crashed, leaving Winifred, Stanley, and Connie alone at night in the rain with an "ill" William Sherman]

Winifred Ames: Oh, God. What do we do now? Huh? Huh? What do we do now, huh, boy producer? Huh? Mister win-an-Emmy, social-conscience, whale-shit, save-the-rain-forest, peacenik-commie, fuckin'-hire-a-convict-shithead? Huh? What do we do now, liberal, affirmative action, shithead, peacenik commie fuck? What do you want to do now?

Stanley Motss: 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!

[all notice a mini TV in the wreckage, playing the opposition's commercial demanding that they produce Schumann]

Winifred Ames: [Winifred takes the TV from Connie and throws it down to the ground] Fuck you!

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Leave it alone! What did television ever do to you?

Winifred Ames: It destroyed the electoral process!

Fad King: We're locked into Albania - Why?

Johnny Dean: Albania's hard to rhyme.

Stanley Motss: What are you looking at me for? It's the name of the country.

Johnny Dean: [sighs resignedly, then sings] "Albania, Albania..."

Stanley Motss: That rhymes.

[Stanley, sitting in the Oval Office, has just reduced a room full of White House secretaries to tears with his speech for the President]

Stanley Motss: [looking around the Office] 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.

[being introduced to a disheveled-looking Sgt. Schumann]

Stanley Motss: Sergeant Schumann, if I may, welcome to history.