IS LIFE IMITATING FICTION?(MAIN)

Byline: PAUL ZIELBAUER Staff writer

When author Larry Beinhart heard the news that President Clinton had authorized military strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan, he shook his head in near disbelief.

``I said, `This is too bizarre to be true,' '' he said. ``I mean, this is too strange to be fiction.''

As the author of ``American Hero,'' the novel that inspired the Hollywood film ``Wag the Dog,'' Beinhart has the right to be in slight awe at how his fictional musings appear to have presaged real life.

In ``Wag the Dog,'' a president is discovered having sex with a ``Firefly Girl,'' and to distract the public his spin doctors -- using movie …