Wag the Dog*

U.S. 101st Airborne division deployed near the Ukrainian border.

The 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky now headquartered in Europe for the first time since World War II.

*As defined by Wikipedia, the phrase dates back as far as 1871. Their definition is as good as any:

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 that people forget about the scandal and focus on the more important issue. The phrase originates in the saying "a dog is smarter than its tail, but if the tail were smarter, then it would wag the dog."[1] The concept has strong intersections with many other aspects of Diversionary foreign policy, particularly the Rally 'round the flag effect, as wag the dog actions tend to both distract and seek to bolster support through these actions.

Assuming the people who brought us Afghanistan and Iraq can pull this off before the election, will the voters choose to stick with a decaying president in the midst of war, or decide to throw the entire cabal out? We may find out.