The US president committed an indiscretion. He seduced a young girl, a very young girl. A Girl Guide. Spin your way out of that one, the spin doctors were told. And they did. They fabricated a war in Albania to distract the attention of the press and save the presidency.
Barry Levinson's satirical movie, Wag The Dog, co-scripted by David Mamet, received good reviews when released in the US last month. The New Yorker called it a "very savvy comedy", the well-known critics, Siskel and Ebert, said it was "one of the year's best films".
But not all the reviews were positive. One critic complained that Wag The Dog falls apart as a whole. "It lacks any human feeling - why should we care whether this president saves his own skin by election day?" Well, now we have an answer.
The American public not only cares about whether the president saves his skin, it cares about little else at the moment. So much so that when not watching Bill and Hillary Clinton's prime-time denials, or leading semiologists deconstructing the ins and outs of fellatio, they trot off to the cinema to see Levinson's eerie mirror of reality.
The movie, which cost a mere $15 million to make, has so far taken $23 million at the box office. Usually, takings would have fallen away by now, but Wag The Dog is up to number six in the US charts.
The film is undeniably helped by its star cast - Robert De Niro as Mr Spin, Dustin Hoffman as the Hollywood producer hired to manufacture the war footage for television, and Willie Nelson as the writer of the maudlin, jingoistic tunes that whip up a hang-'em-high patriotism. But more than anything, it has been helped by the real-life cast fighting it out in the White House.
Strangely enough, the President, who is rather fond of movies, came face to face with the film's stars and director at a charity bash a few months ago. Hey guys, great title, he said, but what's Wag The Dog actually about? They were a little embarrassed, until Hoffman found a solution - he lied, giving the President a fake plot summary.
Of course, political corruption is not a new subject for Hollywood, from the Oscar-winning thriller, All The President's Men, to Tim Robbins's satire, Bob Roberts. But Wag The Dog combines timing and tale so perfectly it could almost be a tie-in with the Monicagate scandal.
The studio, New Line, is taking the moral high ground and insisting it will not exploit the President's misfortune. "We won't take advantage of the situation," an executive says. Like hell they won't.
Last weekend, a shot of the White House was pasted on ads for the movie, with a new line promising "the action starts with a crisis in the White House!"
"Yes, in some ways I do wish it was coming out this week," says Jonathan Rutter, who is handling the publicity for the film's UK release in early March. Mr Rutter says he has fielded numerous calls from reporters and political columnists eager to fill their pages with clever film analogies. Suddenly the film "has a very real resonance".
Is there no way Sexgate, Naughtygate, Jailbaitgate - call it what you will - could actually harm the movie? Well, says Mr Rutter, having a hard think, there is a danger of over-playing it. "We don't want to ram the resonance in people's faces. Otherwise people will start to think it's a docu-drama rather than the very funny movie it actually is, and those who want to escape the coverage on television will not consider Wag The Dog as an option." He has another think. "No, actually I can't see how the White House news will not help the movie."
Over at Universal Studios, the makers of the more costly and high-profile Primary Colors are in a sweaty panic. The original book about a libidinous president, Jack Stanton, hitting the election trail, was a best-seller. It was written by an unnamed author (who turned out to be a former Newsweek journalist, Joe Klein) - a big plus. It was steamy - another big plus. And it was as close to the life of the Clintons as we could have imagined at the time - the biggest plus. The book roared to the top of the charts.
Whether Mike Nichols's film adaptation will do the same is now less certain as reality overtakes Klein's barely imagined fiction. However black and rigorous the satire, there is no way it can outdo reality.