Jack Bauer in the Age of Obama
The iconic TV show 24 has always reflected the times in which we live.
As America’s commitment to Iraq became weaker and questions were raised over treatment of detainees, the series reflected the changing attitudes of the public as a dialogue began on the show between those who believed torture was wrong and those who believed it was distasteful but necessary. The arguments were necessarily shallow, but the attempt to justify Bauer’s illegal methods in the “ticking bomb” scenario resonated with many viewers, especially those on the right. The ticking bomb scenario has largely been debunked by professionals in the military and academia. But that didn’t matter to viewers who tuned in every week to watch Jack try and beat the clock and save American lives.
As Bauer’s personality got darker, he realized that he was becoming what he most hated. Only his devotion to duty drove him on as, in the previous season to this one, he became judge, jury, and executioner in several incidents. Rather than blaming himself, he blamed those who tasked him with protecting America. His superiors never seemed to want to know how the job got done, just that the threat to America was removed.
The seventh season was delayed a year due to the writers’ strike. In the intervening period, the show lost one of its creators, executive producer Joel Surnow. It was Surnow, a rare Hollywood conservative, who was largely responsible for the show’s popularity with the right as 24 became the only drama at the time to realistically portray Islamic radicals as our enemy. The series never degenerated into mindless stereotypes but rather gave the viewer a stark look at what we were fighting.
This year, the series pretty much gave in to liberal Hollywood’s idea on who the enemies of America are — and they aren’t Islamic extremists. The villains in season seven are private military contractors (Blackwater) who want to take over the government by carrying out terrorist attacks and blaming the incidents on innocent Muslims. How the takeover would have been accomplished is not explained and for good reason; it could never happen in a million years. But it works beautifully as a plot device to show that the war on terror is a sham and Muslims are innocent.
Regardless, there were two points in last night’s finale that brought to a head six seasons of personal suffering for Bauer and offered a surprisingly nuanced and sympathetic explanation for all the torture and lawbreaking he felt forced to carry out through the years.
Bauer, dying as a result of being exposed to a biological nerve agent that he had just prevented being used in an attack on Washington, had a revealing conversation with FBI agent Renee Walker, who had adopted some of Jack’s brutal methods in earlier episodes. Having captured “Mr. Big,” Walker realized that other members of the conspiracy would probably go free because the government had no hard evidence that he was actually behind the terrorist attack. With Bauer on a gurney ready to go to the hospital and die, Walker seeks Jack’s advice on whether to torture Mr. Big to get him to talk:
Bauer: I can’t tell you what to do; I’ve been wrestling with this my whole life. I see 15 people held hostage on a bus and everything else goes out the window; I will do whatever it takes to save them. I mean whatever it takes. Maybe I thought if I save them, I save myself.
Walker: Do you regret anything you did today?
Bauer: No. Then again, I don’t work for the FBI.
Walker: I don’t understand.
Bauer: You took an oath,. You made a promise to uphold the law. You cross the line; it always starts out with a small step. Before you know it, your running as fast as you can in the wrong direction just to justify what you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me and in the end, I know that the law has to be more important than the 15 people on the bus. I know that’s right in my mind. I know that’s right. I just don’t think my heart could ever have lived with that. I guess the best advice I can give you is try to make choices you can live with.
What’s significant is that for the first time in seven seasons, we discover Bauer actually has a conscience. He may not regret anything he’s done, but he is perfectly cognizant of his transgressions and is willing to pay the price for them. While some may see this as liberal blather (indeed, it is hard to see Bauer saying this in the first few seasons), it shows a growth in his character that makes him seem far more real than the slam-bang action hero in the early days of the show.
The finale made it pretty obvious that Bauer would not die and that he will be saved by a stem cell treatment courtesy of his formerly estranged daughter Kim. I don’t think it’s an accident that the writers chose stem cells as a life saver. Nor was one of the last scenes in the episode that featured Bauer praying with a Muslim imam he had treated roughly earlier in the season an accident. The imam Gohar responds to a call Bauer made just before they were to administer morphine that would put him in a coma so that he wouldn’t have to endure the nastier effects of the toxin bio agent. His last conscious thoughts were to seek “forgiveness” from Gohar:
Bauer: I made so many mistakes. I always thought I”d have the time to correct them.
Gohar: You have the time right now.
Bauer: (tears welling up) You don’t know what I’ve done.
Gohar: We live in complex times, Mr. Bauer. Nothing is black and white. But I see before me a man with all his flaws and all his goodness. Simply a man.
(Gohar prays)
Let us both forgive ourselves for all the wrongs we have done.
Bauer: Thank you.
Clearly, the stem cell reference and this cloying scene with a Muslim imam were one more attempt to try and change the politics of the series, which for the previous six seasons largely reflected the conservative values of creator Surnow. Throughout this season, the FBI struggled to prevent Bauer from using his illegal methods on subjects, taking the point of view that it didn’t matter if there was a ticking bomb, you should never torture or violate people’s privacy. Even though Jack ended up saving the day, the message came through loud and clear: Jack was wrong even though the outcome saved lives.
Critics of the show will no doubt be pleased at this turn of events. But I think it has overly simplified the 24 universe and overlaid a stifling moral parameter that previously was left for the viewer to decipher. If Jack Bauer has really acquired the attributes of liberal guilt, can he continue to be effective in a world where hesitation means death for millions and the dictum “kill or be killed” becomes more than just a cliche?
I guess we’ll find out next year.
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Rick Moran is PJM Chicago editor; his own blog is Right Wing Nut House.
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61 Comments
1. Blackwater:God forbid the conservatives have one mainstream show… Let’s take that away from them too… As a conservative sometimes it feels like you’re almost living in Castro’s Cuba where you’re only fed a single ideological perspective and you have to meetup in secret settings like at churches or in alleyways with your fellow dissidents to read anti-official literature…
May 21, 2009 - 1:41 am 2. Gary Ogletree:The PC creep in 24 prevented me from watching a single show this year.
May 21, 2009 - 3:20 am 3. Van Wallach:The scene in the hospital would have been much more “transgressive” had Jack been comforted by a rabbi or an evangelical minister. Liberal viewers would have been jolted by the presence by a religious figure who did not fit into their comforting preconceptions of victimhood. 24 could have broken new ground there.
May 21, 2009 - 3:22 am 4. Van Wallach:The scene in the hospital would have been much more “transgressive” had Jack been comforted by a rabbi or an evangelical minister. Liberal viewers would have been jolted by the presence by a religious figure who did not fit into their comforting preconceptions of victimhood. 24 could have broken new ground there.
May 21, 2009 - 3:46 am 5. Jack:Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
No mention of the Jeanine Garofalo character?
May 21, 2009 - 3:48 am 6. Mrs. Happy Housewife:Just giving that America hating slug a paycheck and exposure illustrates that the show has been co-opted. The story line not withstanding.
I was a bit unsettled by the imam scene – until I realized that Jack is not a church-goer & called the only religious person he knew.
May 21, 2009 - 4:14 am 7. don:Add to the list “The Unit” just cancelled by CBS, the mini series replacing it will be “The Life of the Prophet” a joyful romp in the Middle east with Mohammed and the Salafiyah as they gleefully convert or kill everyone in their path . . . Replacing that will be “Lost Horizons” a mini series about Stalinist Russia and the accomplishments of the proletariat in spite of the corrupt counterrevolutionaries, and finally the TV movie “44 Virgins” the hilarious trip of a suicide bomber going through one comic catastrophe after another on his way to blow up a local synagogue (revealing this young man as an everyman just seeking to be recognized).
May 21, 2009 - 4:26 am 8. Ozzie:My family stopped watching the show and buying the DVD sets when we heard that Garafalo was going to be in it. It was good to follow our intuitions, it really WAS the first indicator of a coming problem. Thanks for the article Mr. Moran.
May 21, 2009 - 5:23 am 9. 52jimh:I have only watched one episode of 24, that was enough for me. The Sutherlands are good actors but it is ironic that Kiefer’s role is a 180deg turn from the families true beliefs.
His maternal grandfather (Tommy Douglas) was the architect of our (Canadian) universal health care. It is so efficient, you only have to wait 6 months to be examined by a specialist should you have a life threating illness and another 3 if you head for surgery.
Now that we gave you those lefties, please don’t retaliate and send us Garafalo, please.
K thx bye.
May 21, 2009 - 5:41 am 10. Tomp:This season was a joke. As unrealistic as an obama idea. Goodby 24.
May 21, 2009 - 5:53 am 11. Chuck:I agree, however, I did kind of like the scene with the Imam, but I was worried that they were going to jump the shark of having Jack convert.
One thing that has always bothered me about the show is that no matter who the original terrorist is, by the end of the day the main villain is usually some American corporate or military type.
I might be done.
May 21, 2009 - 6:31 am 12. Jay Lee:Bye, 24. I rented the disks from season 1 after discovering how fun Jack was. I think the last two season were less intriguing and season 7 pretty much sucked.
May 21, 2009 - 6:59 am 13. Locomotive Breath:“The ticking bomb scenario has largely been debunked by professionals in the military and academia.”
Oh, well then, that’s all there is. Case closed. You do know, don’t you, that your link leads to a Yahoo search for Jamie Mayerfeld alone? You’re going to have to do better than a link to a one single academician to convince anyone that something’s been “debunked”.
As a perfect case in point, during the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai India, the authorities had captured some of the terrorists while other terrorists were still holding hostages. Don’t try to tell me that those in custody could not have provided valuable intelligence on the plans and intentions of those still threatening the lives of innocent civilians.
May 21, 2009 - 7:06 am 14. Locomotive Breath:p.s. Next year the Garafalo character will rat out everyone and get them all thrown in jail.
May 21, 2009 - 7:07 am 15. Rick Moran:Loco breath:
Ooops. Wrong link. I have fixed it to link to his paper where he quotes many sources on the impossibility of your ticking bomb scenario – even the Mumbai terrorists only had to hold out a few hours as they knew very well their comrades were doomed.
May 21, 2009 - 7:20 am 16. ChipD:I guess when we debate the issue of torture and whether it is justified, the best test of our own ideas and beliefs is to imagine if the shoe were on the other foot.
If, say, the Obama Admin arrested some suspected “rightwing” radicals, who were accused of wanting to blow up an IRS building or abortion clinic or something.
Would we cheer Jack Baur on as he tortured the suspected radicals? Would we accept their being imprisoned without charges or trial, without any chance to protest their innocence, like American citizen Jose Padilla?
They say that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged; its also true that a liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.
It has always been a central principle of conservatism that government cannot be trusted with power. I think it was a good idea then, and is even more important now.
May 21, 2009 - 7:21 am 17. sheesh:Wow. Michael Steele as the head of the Rapublican National Committee. Rush Limbaugh as the party leader. John Boehner as minority leader in the House. Mitch McConnell as the minority leader in the Senate. Newt Gingrich as the Republican visionary. Jack Bauer as the tepid torturer. And Colin Powell, the only genuine patriot, thrown out of the party.
You guys are good.
May 21, 2009 - 7:22 am 18. BobN:I’m not as negative as some earlier posters on this season.
1. To me the FBI and politicians on the anti- side of Jack’s tactics were portrayed as sanctimonious buffoons. Jack put them all in their place.
2. The murderous Sangalan dictator and his henchmen were thoroughly evil. No whitewashing of Islamic extremism there.
3. Jack showing his complexity and his understanding of moral values is not a sellout to the Left. I didn’t expect him to “revel” in his actions, as he accused Tony of doing.
4. I agree about the imam – the only religious man Jack knew.
5. If Jack and Renee team up as heroes in the next season, provided that Renee wasn’t overcome by remorse and backed off from her enhanced interrogation of Alan Wilson, we’ll know that Right still trumps political correctness (remember “political correctness” is a Marxist term and there is nothing correct about it).
It would sure help if Surnow returned to management. I’m highly suspicious of next season. If it turns out to be a LibFest this show will jump the shark after the first couple of episodes and disappear.
May 21, 2009 - 7:24 am 19. anton:They should have let the character die, they have killed the series anyways. I wonder if they think anybody will actually watch a PC version?
May 21, 2009 - 7:41 am 20. Meryl:24 is the only TV series I followed this year. I always keep firmly in mind that for that hour I have turned my train of thought over to a bunch of WRITERS! Yikes. If they happen to reflect my point of view, it means they thought their writing “that way” would promote the marketing of the program and the ads. It should never be taken to mean they “agree with me” about anything.
I hit the mute when the imam appeared with Jack at the end.
The story lines jumped the shark so many times this year it got almost embarrassing to watch. Time and space were apparently not factors for any of the subplots at any time. It got kind of silly and it will be easier to not watch next year because of that as well.
May 21, 2009 - 7:52 am 21. Daniel MacGregor:Rick Moran has captured the faults of Season 7. And there’s no excuse for them. The producers and writers reached for the hoariest of Hollywood cliches–that life’s evils are being caused by a conspiracy of renegade businessmen–and fashioned Day 7’s drama around it.
Except…
What, exactly, were those bankers and insurance executives doing with the country’s economy?
I do recall G.K. Chesterton’s insistence that when man ceases to believe in God, it’s not that he believes in nothing, but that he will believe in anything. Including, in the instance I just cited, the idea that the country’s bankers and insurance executives possessed godlike abilities where the world eco9nomy was concerned.
Also, we have to take into account that Day 7 closes with this exchange between Janis Gold (Janeane Garofalo) and Agent Walker:
Gold: Woods is on his way to pick up Wilson, and you need to sign the transfer documents.
Walker:(looks at the transfer documents)
Gold: What’s wrong?
Walker: (turns and looks at computer screen)
Gold: What’s going on?
Walker: Get out of here, Janis.
Gold: Excuse me?
Walker: I said get out of here.
Gold: What are you doing?
Walker: GET OUT.
Gold: No. Absolutely not. I’m staying right here until Wilson is transferred.
Walker: Fine. (She turns to the room’s control panel and smashes it)
Gold: What are you… What are you doing?
Walker: (Draws her weapon and points it at Gold)Put your hands over your head.
Gold: Oh.
Walker: I SAID DO IT NOW, JANIS! (Hands Gold a pair of handcuffs) SECURE YOUR HANDS TO THAT POLE. NOW!
Gold: Okay, okay, okay. (She proceeds to put on the cuffs) Just-just calm down, all right? Just…Renee, please don’t do this. Please don’t do this. You’ve done your job. You arrested him. Let the courts take it from here. Stop this now…before it’s too late. Don’t throw away your career. This is absolutely insane. Larry would not have wanted this.
Walker: (Takes out her badge)
Gold: Don’t dishonor his death like this.
Walker: (Places her badge next to the computer. Looking at Wilson through the room’s one-way mirror, she opens the door to face Wilson)
Wilson: (Smiling the smile of a man who “knows” he’s about to get away with everything. Suddenly, looking at the intensity on Walker’s face, he’s not smiling any more.)
Now, we can also refer to episodes earlier in the season where Janeane Garofalo’s Janis Gold is being, well, Janeane Garofalo. But when Jack calls her on it, she doesn’t have a comeback.
Also, I have to say that I am not now, nor have I ever been a Muslim. My Polish ancestors may very well have marched with King Jan Sobieski when, in 1683, he rode to rescue of imperial Vienna from the Muslim Turks.
But, while I believe that the portrait of Muslim extremism 24 presented in previous seasons is fair, I don’t believe that all Muslims are terrorists waiting to come out of the closet. I’ve seen media accounts of Swat Valley Pakistani Muslims who were willing to hear the Taliban’s message–that is, until the Taliban tried to behead the local policeman.
If all Muslims are merely terrorists in waiting, the West would have fallen by now.
May 21, 2009 - 7:58 am 22. Rachel Peepers:This season, a left wing mentality took control, and twenty four turned into a mildly noxious form, one that had me believing season seven was created by unemployed writers from West Wing.
The good guys were the Islamic holy people (and their flock) while the bad guys were right wing domestic terrorist groups. Like bizarro Obama World, up was down, day/ night, right was wrong, threats of torture bad, right wing groups, our biggest danger, climate change a proven fact. The writing marched in lock step with everything the Annoying One, Telebama believes.
Jack Bauer, who used to be a tough, rugged, red blooded American hero who lived by the code of the west, and whose motto seemingly was Davey Crockett’s saying, “Be sure you’re right and then go ahead,” all of a sudden turned into a whimpering, slobbering cornucopia of nuanced Al Gorian air bag required thought streams who deserved a custard pie in the face, not some stem
cell rescue by his pudgy, slow witted daughter.
By the final few scenes, Tony’s character, the only one not infected with Barakian doubletalk, got so caught up in its own underwear that it became obvious he needed some super duper serious therapy. Es decir (that is to say), his only hope of regaining sanity would be in-patient placement under the care of a hand picked team of the best Austria psychoanalysts whose only job, 24/7, would be thinking about this confused soul.
Janeane Garofalo, who played the part of a very bright, nearsighted, self effacing computer geekette, was not what one would call a vision of loveliness. Rather, looking at her on my 42 inch TV screen was like looking directly at the sun. The viewer would be well served to turn away every few seconds to avoid being blinded by the sight. And the over acting was uglier than was this bespeckled, Air America talking point.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that “24″ suffered a metamorphosis, the kind Franz Kafka wrote stories about. Anacronistically speaking, it was an acceptable TV series when they put it to bed for season six, but during the night somehow “24″ turned into a postmodern moral relativist mish mosh of pukish liberalism.
Of course, one can look on the bright side. Maybe between now and next season the same kind of good semitarian TV honcho who puts a suffering dying animal out of its misery will do the same thing for Twenty-Four.
May 21, 2009 - 8:52 am 23. Pastor of Muppets:The day that we look to a fictional TV drama to guide us on how to conduct our national security affairs is the day that we have officially become Idiocracy.
“Welcome to Costco, I love you.”
May 21, 2009 - 9:45 am 24. Jeff:Hey Sheesh, in looking at the incompetent dweebs running our country today, you are either an imbecile or choose to live in a dream world. The list of people you rang up have far more sense than any of your vile kindred spirit.
May 21, 2009 - 9:59 am 25. Brian Richard Allen:I remember when the Fonz jumped the shark, too.
May 21, 2009 - 10:06 am 26. Barry 0351:The only difference is now Bauer will hunt bad guys inside his orginization and pursue veterans and white neo nazi racist with the help of some moderate muslim’s of course. Much Like the run of CSI and CSI clones have done.
May 21, 2009 - 10:25 am 27. Michael:Not to disagree that the overall tone changed this year, but…
The villains of this season – As Tony revealed to Jack in the finale, these were the same people who murdered David Palmer and Michelle back in Season 5. It was all pretty obvious to me from the beginning of that subplot they were going to turn out to be some sort of domestic cabal.
JG – There were several moments when Janice got told where to put her opinion by Jack and Chloe (one even at the point that she was whining about “torture” in RL).
The Imam – As noted above, he was the only religious figure that Jack knew.
Now if were discussing Sum of all Fears, where they replaced a group of Palestinian Terrorists from the novel with Austrian Neo-Nazis in the film…
May 21, 2009 - 11:37 am 28. Mistere:These comments proved the show right. It was a T.V. show but it showed that when in trouble jack would do anything to save the country, now he’s gone liberal and no one who watches the show likes it. They cut their own throats the ones who watches the show DISLIKES what is happening. So we don’t watch it it goes off the air. And deserves too.
May 21, 2009 - 11:38 am 29. Frank:I stopped watching when John Voight started listing conservative values as his reason for killing millions of people.
This season was so clearly written by a drooling socialist troll that I couldn’t be bothered. I stuck with it through the T.V announcements saying “Islam is a religion of peace”. I stuck through the President being behind everything, but this was too much.
People who stand for individual freedom and small government don’t violate individual freedom and seek to impose themselves as a dictatorial government. It’s so clear that the retarded leftist writers are projecting their own values on the “evil right wingers” that I couldn’t sit by and support that by giving them ratings, no matter how action packed it was.
It’s a shame, cuz this used to be one of my favorite shows.
May 21, 2009 - 11:43 am 30. Darren:I dunno about the “Muslims are the good guys” in this season. It’s not that they were bad, the older brother was just a pawn. He did what anyone would do, which was comply when he could and try to warn people when he saw the opportunity. The Imam was defensive and obnoxious, until he saw that Jack could be trusted and only had the brother’s best interests at heart. That they reached an understanding is not Jack’s embrace of Islam, I’m in the “only religious person he knew” camp.
Renee was the pivotal character of season 7. The season was in part about her journey along the same razor edge between being lawful for the sake of being lawful, and being lawless to uphold the law, the same line Jack had been walking for the past 15 years. She veered from insubordinate and out-of-control (for her, at the hospital) to threatening an innocent (the mother and child at the house), to regret (slapping Jack at the hospital), to anger and finally resolve by the final scence.
They couldn’t go back and undo what Jack had done, or nerf him into someone who wouldn’t beat the stuffing out of his best friend to save ten thousand lives, but they could give us a fresh character who we could follow along the arc from eager, idealistic agent to someone entirely task-focused, and if necessary, willing to flout the rules to do the Right Thing, even at personal cost.
It seems like we’re being set up for another interstitial “movie event” before the next season moves Jack and players to be named later to NYC for the 8th season. What Renee intended by closing the door to Alan Wilson’s cell is unclear, I believe deliberately so. Did she start by shooting his left ankle, then his right and move up bone by bone? Did she speak menacingly while holding her pistol and psyche him out? Did she try to pull a Tony and insert herself into his organization in return for freeing him from the FBI building? Did she just leave him with a bullet hole in his forehead and disappear? All will be revealed.
There is a false dichotomy that has entered the public consciousness, likely from Star Wars, with the concept that charcters that use The Force are either entirely within the light side, or entirely within the dark side. That’s just not human nature. All of us in ways large and small walk the line between good and evil like Jack did, like we watched Renee do this season.
The stem-cell thing I wouldn’t read too much into. Adult stem-cell therapy is uncontroversial unless you talk about how it is viable and embryonic cells are to this point not. There was no mention of “embryonic” and it was never specified that an egg was needed from a female relative, only stem cells.
It was not a great season, but it was a good one. Jack’s body count was way down, and seeing his scars and imagining the price he paid for serving his country was humanizing for him. When allowed to speak at length on the subject, Jack did not meekly accept the judgment of the self-righteous Senator at the hearing, he gave better than he got in that exchange. Maybe it will be more nerfed by season 8, but there was no conclusion on torture or enhanced interrogation, only a discussion where both sides were heard.
No wonder liberals hate this show.
May 21, 2009 - 12:10 pm 31. myth buster:Every season of 24 involved traitors in the American government or such associates working alongside the terrorists. The West African thugs are bound to be either Muslims or Communists.
May 21, 2009 - 12:20 pm 32. Locomotive Breath:“even the Mumbai terrorists only had to hold out a few hours”
You’ve refuted your own point. The authorities had a very brief time to extract any useful information they could get before more innocent people started dying. “Pretty please” doesn’t get the job done in time.
May 21, 2009 - 12:49 pm 33. Oscar Wao:But I think it has overly simplified the 24 universe and overlaid a stifling moral parameter that previously was left for the viewer to decipher. If Jack Bauer has really acquired the attributes of liberal guilt, can he continue to be effective in a world where hesitation means death for millions and the dictum “kill or be killed” becomes more than just a cliche?
Moral parameters are stifling you nitwit. That’s the whole point. Why don’t you take off your pants and rub your penis against your neighbor’s cubicle. Freeing yourself thusly of your moral uncertainty will likewise make America safer–at least it has as much to do so in the kind of real world you think is reflected by this asinine show. Read the newspaper douche bag. There are no plots broken up this way; in fact, the latest plot, like almost everyone before it, was broken up by informants. NO TORTURE NECESSARY!
Anyway, why am I wasting my time. This site and your job won’t be here in about three months time.
May 21, 2009 - 1:05 pm 34. Margie:There were moments during the show this season when I could have sworn CAIR was writing the script. I think I’m done with 24, after the last few hugely disappointing seasons of unrealistic terrorists. The whiny liberal enviro-preaching and hand-wringing are just too much to bear. Go rent “Taken” with Liam Neeson. He makes Jack Bauer look like a pacifist peace-nik. The bad guys and plot are actually believable, plus the good guy wins, which in liberal loony land, is somehow considered unfair.
May 21, 2009 - 1:05 pm 35. Clayton E. Cramer:I really enjoyed the first four seasons of 24, not because Jack tortures bad guys and wins, but because the show showed how good people, with really, really bad choices, sometimes do bad things for a good purpose. Remember when they torture one of their fellow workers at CTU because they suspect her–and she turns out to be completely innocent?
Liberals spent much of the 1980s promoting the idea through the educational system that right and wrong are either cultural or situational. The National Education Association for a while had a “lifeboat” scenario that they encouraged students to use to discuss who to throw overboard from a leaking lifeboat. Obviously, the goal was to promote the idea that abortion is ugly, yes, but think of how much worse it might be for the pregnant teenager if you she carried that baby to term!
No surprise; once you abolish the notion of absolute right and wrong with respect to ethics, you can throw God out of the picture, too. That such scenarios are actually extraordinarily rare in the real world didn’t seem to bother liberals back then.
24 created similarly rare scenarios where a good person has to made hard choices (as happened with waterboarding of three al-Qaeda VIPs)–and suddenly, liberals aren’t happy with situational ethics. What a surprise!
May 21, 2009 - 1:14 pm 36. Clayton E. Cramer:“The day that we look to a fictional TV drama to guide us on how to conduct our national security affairs is the day that we have officially become Idiocracy.”
I wasn’t aware that anyone was looking to it for guidance. It did raise questions of the sort that liberals used to love: the idea that there’s nothing right or wrong; all ethics are either situationally or culturally specific.
May 21, 2009 - 1:17 pm 37. JWT:Five bucks, and priceless: The imam was scripted as being so numbskull as to counsel the penitent with “let’s each of us forgive ourselves.”
That’s probably the profoundest soteriology a leftist writer can come up with.
May 21, 2009 - 1:43 pm 38. Pastor of Muppets:36. Clayton E. Cramer: “I wasn’t aware that anyone was looking to it for guidance.i>
That’s because you apparently didn’t read the article:
“The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show’s staff that DVDs of shows such as 24 circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq. Lagouranis said to me, “People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen.””
May 21, 2009 - 1:46 pm 39. Rick Moran:#33 Mr. Wao(ver the top):
Holy Jesus you need to get laid. Your imagery bespeaks a man who has been rejected by females either for being a dork (perfectly believable from what you’ve written) or a nasty, preachy,ill-mannered misanthrope.
I was writing (as everyone else recognized) about a new moral parameter that, compared to the moral universe in previous seasons, was much more stifling and preachy. Are you saying that demanding the audience accept a moral view compared to allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions isn’t “stifling?”
As far as the website and my job – sorry to disappoint but we are in this for the long haul – repeat – the Long Haul. I will be working for PJM long after your bagging job at whatever grocery store you work at has disappeared.
May 21, 2009 - 2:09 pm 40. GClarke:Would an environmental proslytizer waterboard a corporate CEO who worships at the altar of profit to find a ticking bomb that would release toxic oil refuse into a pristine salmon run? Sure he would. The argument against torture was never about torture or situational ethics. It was about replacing Bush with a leftist. Now Obama the anti-Bush reserves to himself the right to use extreme interrogation methods and all is clear. As Claude Rains would say: “I am shocked, Rick. There is gambling going on around here, right under our noses.”
May 21, 2009 - 2:15 pm 41. jryan:“24″ and “The Unit” used to be my conservative moment of Zen… both have been overrun by the PC police now, though. The first few seasons of “The Unit” are fantastic, though.
May 21, 2009 - 2:31 pm 42. Oscar Wao:sorry to disappoint but we are in this for the long haul – repeat – the Long Haul.
Good luck with that; its going to be quite long.
May 21, 2009 - 2:49 pm 43. Mo:I have watched this show from the first episode onward. What I saw on my screen this finale made me ill. In a few short minutes these writers destroyed a heroic character and wonderful show.
I am furious about it.
May 21, 2009 - 2:51 pm 44. Flipper415:Please remember the “Stem Cells” we are talking about hear are adult stem cells, like those used in bone marrow transplants, not embryonic stem cells. There is an extreme difference.
May 21, 2009 - 2:57 pm 45. Mo:“What’s significant is that for the first time in seven seasons, we discover Bauer actually has a conscience.”
Nonsense! Jack Bauer always had a conscience. Nothing he did came easy to him, and we always saw the pain and the price he had to pay in his relationships and personal life.
May 21, 2009 - 3:38 pm 46. T. O'Connor:Did anyone see the New York Times’s “Arts Beat” blog, by Ginia Bellafante, Tuesday, the morning after the final ‘24′ aired?
In “The ‘24′ Finale: Harvesting Our Final Thoughts,” Bellafante’s synopsis completely misses the point. Did she even watch the show?! Her obtuse explanation of “Freckles Bauer’s” decision to torture Wilson (over the Garafolo character’s objections):
“Of course, by the time the FBI has Wilson in custody, innocent lives are no longer in danger; Walker wants her shot at tearing Wilson apart to exact revenge for the lives lost that day.”
Thanks again, New York Times.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/the-24-finale-harvesting-our-final-thoughts/
May 21, 2009 - 3:39 pm 47. Mike Shuster:um, the thing is, about 90% the season of 24 that just ended was written and shot before the election.
May 21, 2009 - 4:18 pm 48. MochaLite:24 has definitely jumped the shark. Bauer has become Obama, apologizing for what needs to be done. Muslims are only kind and good, never terrorists. Bad guys are white guys. Too bad – it used to be a good show.
May 21, 2009 - 6:57 pm 49. James:I kind of stuck with the show just to see if that rat Olivia got her comeuppance (which she did), but the thing that really pissed me off was the moralizing about how 24 was Carbon Free… here is bad guy Tony Almeda telling me to reduce my carbon footprint.. you’ve got to be kidding right?
After blowing things up (which I like) and driving madly around Washington in great big cars, employing fleets of black helicopters, they have the gall to tell me to watch my carbon footprint. What unmitigated hypocrisy.
BTW for all the tennis fans here did you ever notice how much Tony Almeda looks like Marat Safin.
May 21, 2009 - 10:34 pm 50. drjohn:Hopefully Bauer puts a bullet into Janice (Janeane Garafalo) eventually. Putting her on the show made it nearly unwatchable.
May 22, 2009 - 5:27 am 51. goy:@45. Mo: - Jack Bauer always had a conscience. Nothing he did came easy to him, and we always saw the pain and the price he had to pay in his relationships and personal life.
That’s exactly the thought that occurred to me when I read that line, where the creeping annoyance I was already feeling from wasting my time reading that far turned into full-blown regret – just like watching 24, which I hoped against Hope would get better. It never did.
Season 7 was the most poorly written, least watchable, most utterly predictable so far. The ‘action’ was asinine, the ‘bad guys’ were boring and the ‘finale’ fizzled. The idea that this particular season of this particular series had anything relevant to say about the state of our Republic is truly laughable.
24 needs one final two-hour, action-packed series finale where Jack goes out in a blaze of glory. The End.
May 22, 2009 - 8:00 am 52. oldguy:24 has “jumped the shark”.
May 22, 2009 - 10:33 am 53. Ozzie:Yes, it has jumped the shark. I can’t wait to read the reviews next year that will describe how the series has had the last traces of it’s dignity removed. The liberals won’t be happy to kill it. They want to hurt it so bad it will be emmasculated and ridiculous, your fond remembrances painful to recall. That’s how they despoil all good things. They tried with Reagan, the Republican Revoluton, the US cold war victory, US history, the founder’s intents, et all. They revise and revise until good is evil, evil is good and confused soccer moms hold all our fates in their moderate little hands. Hence Barack Obama’s ascendency.
May 22, 2009 - 11:29 am 54. Craig:Jack may have been saved by stem cells, but they were ADULT stem cells.
May 22, 2009 - 11:41 am 55. Anonymous:33. Oscar Wao: “Anyway, why am I wasting my time. This site and your job won’t be here in about three months time.”
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Wow! Are the Leftists going to crush all dissent again?
May 22, 2009 - 5:49 pm 56. neverquit:33. Oscar Wao: “Anyway, why am I wasting my time. This site and your job won’t be here in about three months time.”
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Wow! Are the Leftists going to crush all dissent again?
May 22, 2009 - 5:50 pm 57. Ziggy:I thought this season sucked. 24 went PC and I simply quit watching the series..
May 22, 2009 - 6:05 pm 58. Roark:This last season of 24 is a big pile of S**T. I’m amazed at the 180 degree turn the show has made from great to crap.
May 22, 2009 - 8:58 pm 59. Bob:I will not watch the final season of “24″ when it returns in Jan 2010. Count me out.
“24″ got wussified this season.
May 23, 2009 - 12:25 pm 60. WhyamInotsurprised?:Jeanine Garafalo … Yeeeeeccchhh!
May 25, 2009 - 7:37 am 61. Koblog:Agree fully with 41. jryan. The Unit and 24 were once good shows, but were co-opted much the same as Obama has co-opted the U.S.
Obama’s telling us daily how bad we are. Lefty writers infiltrating The Unit and 24 have done the same. This is dangerous stuff: you tune in to hear one thing and hear something completely different…and wrong. It takes a while to understand the cognitive dissonance that results. It’s very subtle. You think, “That’s not how it should be…” but keep watching out of loyalty until full-blown disappointment sets in.
24 telegraphed the newspeak when they hired Garofalo. Of all the actresses out there, to jump a leftwing shark like that was obvious.
The Unit and 24 both became unwatchable when the writers agreed with Obama and other conventional leftwing thinking that Americans are, at root, always the bad guys.
CBS canceled The Unit. My wife and I decided that though Fox will continue 24, we will cancel 24 from our DVR list.
And if the DVR doesn’t record it, it doesn’t exist.
May 25, 2009 - 9:47 am