With the possibility of the Senate jurors examining redacted material from the OIC impeachment referral in the Ford building in Washington, the President will ' wag the dog ' again somewhere, to insert his own wild card into the process. The only questions left are, exactly where, when and who will be attending the dog show?

*Monday, Clinton started his ' wag the dog ' campaign by embracing the Republican issue of tax cuts. Through the auspices of a new health care program, he suggested a 1,000 dollar tax credit for families with elderly dependants. This is doubly good for him, as it also contains one of his and Hillary's favorite subjects, health care. Obviously, his pollsters all aggree on the popularity of both tax cuts and health care to the American public.

*Tuesday, Clinton continued to jerk the leash with renewed attacks on Iraqi assests, aircraft violating the southern no-fly zone ( see: Zero for Six? ( 1-6-99 ) ) and a declaration to ease trade and travel restrictions on Cuba. Sadly, the attacks in Iraqi air space provided no interesting gun camera footage and Castro was hit with a complaint filed in Paris by lawyer Serge Lewisch on behalf of Ileana de la Guardia for international drug trafficing. So, maybe these two were not so great for whipping up positive poll numbers!

*Today, Wednesday, Clinton went before the media cameras and announced a projected budget surplus for 1999. Okay, this type of announcement always produces some positive approval ratings for the President. The questions would be two-fold on this matter. One, was the Social Security trust fund still used in the equation? Two, how much of the projected 76 billion dollar surplus will eventually be spent on more of his pet social projects, before the year is over? " Before we consider any new spending or tax cuts, first we must set this surplus aside until we save Social Security for the 21st century ", the President said. When have we heard this one before? The answer is, just the week before the Whitehouse held the Congress hostage to insert some Democrat pork into last years Omnibus Budget aggreement, ignoring his previous pledge to ' save Social Security first '. Funny, isn't this statement in direct contradiction to Clinton's statement on Monday concerning a 1,000 dollar tax break for health care related expenses, amounting to an additional 6 billion dollar expenditure?

My prediction would be some highly publicized foreign policy related action(s) will be taken shortly, before or as the Senate trial begins. The Whitehouse will attempt to grab some headlines, in order to defer attention from the Senate proceedings and keep his perceived approval ratings high in the opinion polls. This is an especially important tactic, as Democrat Senator Robert Byrd said this concerning his possible vote on Clinton's removal from office, on C-Span this morning, " I could go either way based on the evidence as I've seen it or heard it. And I've followed it pretty closely ".

Possible International Dog Show Locations.

Asia. North Korea and Red China may be too sensitive of areas to hold the show. North Korea and Red China are possible locations of shadey deals involving questionable technology transfers. Actions in either of these two arenas could result in as much bad press coverage as good.

Northern Ireland. The peace process is stalled here, and some monumental dog wagging could be concocted quite easily. Watch for a tip off, if any of the parties involved visit Washington or Whitehouse agents begin to have meetings with the opposing sides.

Kosovo. Violence has erupted and been ongoing for weeks now. This would be another popular subject of some phoney media event. With violence actually occuring in the usually quiet capital of Pristina, this could be a tough nut to crack in time!

Israel. With Yasser Arafat threatening to declare a Palestinian state on May 4th, the continuing violence in Gaza and on the West Bank and Israeli elections set for May 17th, this theater would be difficult. Coming down on either side of any of these issues could cause unexpected fallout.

Iraq. Here we go again, Saddam Hussein seems to be the most likely target. With allegations of CIA involvement in UNSCOM missions and renewed rhetoric from Uncle Saddam, a few successful U.S. air attacks could work some " wag the dog " media magic. I bet they stick to shooting at ground targets in this next round, to avoid the embarrassment of our high tech weapons missing their marks!

My advice for the Iraqis would be to start hording the drinking water and gasoline again, right away!

- Bongo ( Come, heal, sit, down, stay...good dog. )