Cynical Nation

Jack Bauer's back and kicking ass and, as usual, I've got some questions.

First, do any liberals watch this show? Ever? I have to believe the answer is "no," because apart from a handful of grumpy Muslim-Americans, no one has bothered to bitch about the show. If lefties were paying attention in significant numbers, I think we'd see quite a bit more rending of garments and snide commentary at the very least, and probably a formal complaint or two.

After all, 24 is an extremely popular prime-time show in which a maverick counter-terror agent saves the world from terrorism in an extremely politically incorrect fashion. The show is refreshingly free of American angst and self-flagellation, and zero time is wasted on why-do-they-hate-us ruminations. Those are precious seconds in which we could be killing terrorists, after all.

The great debates of the day (e.g., torture and warrantless searches) are not presented as debates at all, but rather as a mundane matter of daily routine ("Morning, Jack! Traffic was a bitch today. You catch the Lakers game last night? Say, pass those electrodes, would ya?") Few people ever object, and when they do, they are presented as cartoonish moonbat stereotypes, whose naive do-goodism merely presents another annoying obstacle to saving the country. So remember, the next time you're debating some hippie about counter-terror detention and surveillance, simpyl tell them to watch 24 and get a clue as to how the "real world" works. I can guarantee you'll get an entertaining reaction.

And I won't even begin to delve into the race and gender politics of the show. Suffice it to say there's a rich vein to mine there for the perpetually aggrieved, were they inclined to do so.

Secondly, I wonder whether the show's writers regret centering the show on the Los Angeles branch of CTU. It's becoming increasingly difficult to contrive the events of the show to be centered in this locale. In the season five opener, for example, President Logan is signing an anti-terrorism treaty with the Russian president at his ranch outside of... L.A. Meanwhile, former President Palmer is writing his memoirs in a hotel suite... in L.A. This one seems easy enough to fix, however, by simply transferring Bauer to New York or D.C.

All right, so that's all the 24 blogging for now, but I'm sure there'll be more to come later. Meanwhile, despite the ridiculous, contrived storylines, the preposterous timelines, and the plot holes you could drive a Ryder van full of ammonium nitrate through, I'll be on the edge of my seat for the next 20 weeks.