24's Sutherland says Bauer will have inner struggle about torture. About time.

[madfloridian]

After condoning and excusing the use of methods of torture for years, now we learn that this season Jack Bauer will soften a bit and question its use.

"24"s Jack Bauer gets conflicted on torture

OS ANGELES (Reuters) - Special agent Jack Bauer is back on a television thriller "24," and after an almost two-year break, he is feeling a little conflicted -- especially on the controversial subject of torture. The popular Fox program took heat in 2004 and 2005 for what was seen as popularizing torture at a time when the United States was being condemned worldwide for its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

But actor Kiefer Sutherland, who returned to American TV screens this week in a two-hour premiere of "24," says counterterrorism unit head Bauer is older, wiser and undergoing an inner struggle both personally and professionally.

"Jack Bauer is in a position where he is questioning a lot of what he has to do," Sutherland said on Tuesday at the Television Critics Association meetings. "He is wrestling with his own history and what he believes is right and fair. ... It is a line which travels through all the episodes this year."

In the season premiere, Bauer faces questions over possible human rights violations before a congressional hearing.

Maybe the visit from the dean of West Point had some impact.

From last year in the Washington Post.

Turns out the Dean of West Point flew to Hollywood to ask the show to cut down on the torture sequences.

The key scene in Mayer's story occurred last November, when Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan, the dean of West Point, decided that he needed to do something to end the horror of Americans torturing prisoners. So he gathered three of the top military and FBI interrogation experts and they headed for the airport.

Did they fly to Abu Ghraib? No. Guantanamo? No. One of those secret prisons where the CIA allegedly tortures terror suspects? Nope. Finnegan and his experts flew to Hollywood to meet the producers of the TV show "24," so Finnegan could urge them to stop the actors who play American agents from pretending to torture the actors who play terrorists in the show.

Really. This actually happened.

The problem, Finnegan told Mayer, is that his students at West Point see Americans torturing terrorists on "24" -- which happens nearly every week -- and they wonder why they're not supposed to do it in real life: "The kids see it, and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about "24"?' " he says.

What will that do to poor Rush Limbaugh and to the others in the almost former Bush administration who love the series and think it reflects real life?

Last March, Rush Limbaugh hosted a dinner for "24's" executive producer, Joel Surnow, and invited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, who works at the conservative Heritage Foundation. (Wouldn't it have been fun to be a fly on that wall?) Inspired by the dinner, Virginia Thomas organized a full-blown Heritage symposium with the wonderful title " '24' and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?" Michael Chertoff, the real-life homeland security secretary, showed up to praise the show, saying, "Frankly, it reflects real life."

After the symposium, Surnow and other "24" honchos went to the White House to dine with Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Lynne Cheney and Mary Cheney.

"People in the administration love the series," says Surnow, who described himself to Mayer as a "right-wing nut job."

Maybe our party, now in control will get a strong conscience back on this. Maybe the many Democrats who voted to allow Bush to decide who and how to torture will now be ready to change their 2006 votes.

Maybe.

[seabeyond]

1. perfect time so they can blame it all on obama and liberals.... never seen the show

i really know nothing baout it. but first he is all tough and all, bettin the guys like him, then wavering....

better plot it out good.

[madfloridian]

4. We watched it a few times, but could not bear the cruelty.

Guess I am one of those sensitive people who can't handle that stuff. Neither can hubby.

Many say it is great, but I can't handle it.

[seabeyond]

5. i cant wont dont. made myself look at the true life horrors. felt i

should be at least responsible enough to see what was being done in our name. that was more than enough for me

i am not entertained by that and other stuff

[madfloridian]

21. The fact that the show is such a hit...

shows that a whole lot of people DO like to watch stuff like that.

I can't, it just disturbs me to see it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

43. I discovered it late and saw quite a few of the series back to back.

It's very formulaic. After the third or fourth 24, the pattern got boring.

I'm one of those who can watch very gory things because it's all make believe to me. I'm too busy trying to figure out if it's ketchup, chocolate, molasses or corn syrup that's dripping down someone's skull to worry about what it represents. And, of course, I like a good twist and I like to see how some writers keep some things fresh, like vampire stories. It amazes me how that one is evolving.

[madfloridian]

45. I can't watch vampire stuff really either. Or gratuitous violence.

I never could, but its worse as I get older. I guess I am too sensitive.

[The Backlash Cometh]

46. Nothing wrong with being too sensitive.

It's a good place to be. Maybe I'm just numb.

The Twilight Saga is not too gory, as far as vampire stories go. It's a love story, though meant for younger girls, the moms seem to like it. It's written by a Mormon of all things. It's going to be America's response to Harry Potter in popular art.

[babylonsister]

2. From Holder today-pretty definitive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdAt1GcIs6E
Eric Holder: Waterboarding is Torture

[madfloridian]

3. So glad to hear that.

Thanks.

[JackRiddler]

6. 24 cancelled as people stop watching crap TV. About time.

Reforming the show "24" is the top issue facing this nation.

[Rage for Order]

23. Please tell me you forgot the "sarcasm" tag n/t

[Robbins]

7. 24

Not to excuse some of the writers past use of tortue but the far right co creater Joel Surtow has left the show.They are Liberal
moderate and Conservative writers on the show.Howard Gordon the present showrunner Is a vet of Beauty and the beast,The X-Files,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.And people should seperate Kiefer Sutherland from jack bauer.He has made It clear he personally
doesn't approve of torture.And comes from a very Liberal family.

Let's also remember 24 has had 2 Black Democratic Presidents and a Bush/Nixon Republican President Involved In using terrorists
and conspiring to kill Dennis Haysbert's Democratic Ex president(Considered the JFK of the 24 Universe)

There are Liberals who watch 24.As one who do I don't like the consent use of Torture and the Idea it gets you Information when
we know In reality It doesn't work.And whenever an Innocent person Is tortured it Is whitewashed away.

[madfloridian]

8. I can't watch it so can't argue effectively on its merits.

I am just glad it is re-examining its mindset.

[Hanse]

9. Gee whiz.

So what's going to happen on House?

[Mika]

10. An abortion.

:hide:

[Ken Burch]

36. ...but it'll take the whole episode before they can diagnose it...

:eyes:

[question everything]

11. If the "kids" at West Point cannot separate fiction from reality

then we have a bigger problem on our hands.

What about that kid who stood in the middle of traffic - and got killed - because he watched this on a video game?

There were many instances when "24" took "creative license" like when "Jack Bauer" himself was tortured and was practically clinically dead... only to be back in top form before the hour was over. Or when CTU agents would drive from one part of Metro LA to another again, in less than an hour, in mid day. Or when the desert outside LA and then LA itself were attacked by a nuclear bomb and yet everything continued as if nothing happened.

This is fictional TV. Why can't people get this? What about all the other gore on other programs? I just finished watched CSI and all I could think was that I hope people like those sadistic criminals do not exist.

And how does complaining about "torture" on "24" is different from all the "family" groups complaining about sexual situations on other programs?

[madfloridian]

12. Okay.

I really don't know how to explain the difference.

I don't watch it.

Only thing is it is not fictional anymore, we are really torturing people.

[azul]

13. Because the truth and fiction are merged by confusion of conflicting sources?

And who do you believe if authoritarianism is in charge of deliberate mixed messages?

We have problems with reality:
-----------


TONY JONES: One of the other extraordinary things that you uncovered is the way in which life imitates art if you cab call the cable TV series '24' art.

Because what we discover is that Jack Bauer, the hero of the series, who is a torturer, to put it mildly, virtually every episode he tortures someone to find out some piece of information from a terrorist, that he is actually a hero of many of the key figures in this story, and that those shows are being beamed into Guantanamo Bay, and that techniques from Jack Bauer were picked up by people in Guantanamo Bay.

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well that's all right but I'm afraid I can't take any credit because I came across this completely accidentally.

I hadn't watched the TV series '24', it's beamed into Britain, one of my kids has seen it, but while I was interviewing Diane Beaver, who was the main lawyer down at Guantanamo, she mentioned to me, she said, "We were watching '24', I wrote in fact on my notes "Becker".

I get back to my hotel room, it doesn't ring any bells, I google search it and it says do you mean '24' Bauer, and I said yes and I then had a series of conversations with Diane Beaver, and she confirmed as she put it that '24' had many friends down at Guantanamo Bay.

And in fact the timing is quite remarkable. The second series of '24' was beamed into Guantanamo on the 29th of October 2002, at the very time they were deliberating on these new techniques and it created as I was told not just by Diane Beaver but by those who opposed these techniques, it's important to know that there were many people down at Guantanamo, many people in the administration, who were were deeply opposed, and in the military, to the techniques, but the program '24' created an environment which essentially said, "these techniques work, abuse works, torture produces reliable information", and that was the context in which I think these decisions were taken in 2002.

TONY JONES: It wasn't only at the lower ends of the scale either, it appears that Jack Bauer had huge fans in the US Supreme Court, and even Michael Chertoff , who's the head of Homeland Security is a Jack Bauer fan, and an avowed one.

PHILIPPE SANDS: No, absolutely, once I had uncovered the Jack Bauer '24' connection, I dug a little bit further and of course what you learn is that there are conventions all around the US on the program '24'.

And even one of the justices Clarence Thomas had attended rather publicly one of these conventions, Michael Chertoff spoke glowingly about the television series, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, and so you can begin to get a sense, your viewers can get a sense of the sort of environment that is taking place which allows that type of decision making to occur.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2340393.htm

[madfloridian]

14. Good article. With Limbaugh and Clarence Thomas involved...

and Chertoff calling it real life....we have a problem.

[spoony]

26. No shit!

And do they watch Rambo and wonder why we're training so many soldiers when one is more than enough?

[moggie]

31. Seems West Point must be enrolling imbeciles

Suggestion for the Dean: if you find you're struggling to teach your students the difference between fantasy and reality, kick them out, because they're dangerous. Don't expect the rest of society to steer your students into safer fantasies.

[rpannier]

33. You know that's what I thought the first time this story came up

Who the hell are they recruiting????

They can't differentiate reality from a TV show.

They're getting a pretty poor set of recruits

[Ken Burch]

37. Why was the CTU in LA, anyway?

Was the government afraid Al Qaeda would blow up Rodeo Drive?

[rcrush]

15. 24 ran out of ideas

After the second season. It was a really good first two seasons but then it just got silly.

[Feron]

28. I disagree. The 5th season was the best one.

And 24 has always required of suspension of belief.

[bigtree]

16. it's sad that the script of this show is followed closer than the script of our government

. . . but, if you follow their drift you can see the same outline of the 'moving forward' attitude of the incoming administration which seems to want to portray the crimes and the relative impunity of the perpetrators of torture in the Bush administration as a 'learning process' instead of cause for indictment and prosecution.

[madfloridian]

17. Right. We should not use it a 'learning process' instead of cause for indictment.

We should not let it go forward without prosecution. I fear we will, though.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Well Look Who Just Caught Up

Producers, writers, and directors! What took you so long?
GAC

[galaxy21]

19. torture on 24 is more of a plot device than a political comment

They need to show Jack as a badass- him torturing guys does that. Its an action show, people like action and violence.

Also, because of the nature of 24, Jack never has time to question anyone. He's got to get the information right there and then. If Jack was at Guatanamo bay, and he had more time, he might try talking to people.

[madfloridian]

20. Our nation loves its "badasses."

More so since Bush came into office...cowboy tough stuff. The "boots in the ass" stuff, the USA USA chants.

[madfloridian]

22. Something I won't forget...when Bill Nelson defended Gitmo. Martinez did not.

Nelson...Democrat..Florida. Martinez, Republican, Florida.

They actually took opposing sides with Nelson on the wrong side.

I can't find the archived article at the newspaper but I found this from 2003

"Florida's senior U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, also thinks there is no need to move the prison from Guantanamo, said his communications director Dan McLaughlin. He visited Guantanamo early on when charges first were made about mistreatment and he did not see evidence of wrongful acts that rises to the level of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"He is not convinced it would be pragmatic to close the base, based on what he knows," McLaughlin said.

Nelson thinks that it would be premature to make a move based on allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, his communications director said."

Here is what Mel Martinez said then:

"U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez's statement that the U.S. should consider closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay where terrorist suspects are being held is forcing other Florida members of Congress to think about the issue."

[madfloridian]

24. Picture..Chertoff visits 24, admires Kiefer.

Michael Chertoff Pays A Visit To Kiefer Sutherland

TURNS out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is a huge fan of “24.” When he heard Kiefer Sutherland
, who plays counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer, was in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to shoot the hit Fox series, Chertoff paid a visit to the set outside the Willard Intercontinental Hotel to see art imitating his life. “He observed them filming a scene and talked with executive producer Brad Turner,” a rep for the L.A.-based show told The Post’s Melissa Jane Kronfeld. Sutherland even met his real-life counterparts, a group of 15 counter-terrorist FBI agents, who posed for a photo with the star. Producers shot more scenes at the Jefferson and Washington Memorials, the Capitol and in Georgetown. Among the throngs of fans who shouted, “Go Jack!” and “Kiefer, Kiefer!” was Motion Picture Association head Dan Glickman. After wrapping, Sutherland was spotted eating at Nathan’s and bar-hopping at Billy Martin’s and McFadden’s.

[daleo]

25. I never did watch it

I always thought it sad and ironic, that a relative (Kiefer Sutherland) of the man who brought public medical care to Canada (T.C. Douglas) would end up as a poster boy for torture to many Americans.

Such a contrast between ideas of heroism - Tommy Douglas fought long and hard for the most humane idea that can be imagined (public health care), while 24's heroism revolved around torture, that most inhumane of all activities.

[madfloridian]

27. Agreed. And the fact that ""People in the administration love the series,"

tells me so much about this administration. The kick ass boys.

[annabanana]

29. Will he be unable to sleep? Will he self medicate, lose his job and

his shelter? Will he die of exposure on the street?
- these I consider "getting a break".

[DBoon]

30. I'm waiting for the episode where Jack Bauer is arrested for crimes against humanity

as sometimes happens to those in the real world who use torture as an instrument of governance:

http://www.amnesty.org.au/hrs/comments/18155/

[kenny blankenship]

32. Maybe he can do his soul searching on ice?

It's worked for many before him.

[rpannier]

34. I've agreed with most of your posts however this whole affair speaks more to the cadets than the sho

Where the f*ck are they getting these people at West Point.
From Psych wards.

They can't tell reality from fiction???

The Army needs to step up its screening for new recruits if they're that influenced by this show.

[madfloridian]

35. Our nation's mindset has been about torture and kicking ass since 2001

There are going to be shows like this on the air, of course. But I can see where young people could be thinking torture is okay when it is openly advocated on networks and even on C-Span.

These 20 something age wise folks have been hearing about torture and kicking butts for 8 years. That's a good portion of their lives.

[rpannier]

40. And I understand that and on some levels I agree

But there seems to be little discussion within the ranks of the Army about the quality of people they are getting at West Point. For me, this should be where the focus of the discussion should be, not on some crappy television show.

[defendandprotect]

42. "...when it is openly advocated on networks and even on C-Span"

While I haven't watched much of C-span since GOP take-over of Congress

and WH as it seemed to have seriously limited their perspective --

WHAT was it that you saw on C-span re torture...????

[BlooInBloo]

38. Suckers.

1) Jack Bauer doesn't exist.
2) The story will be told so as to give the appearance of an inner struggle, the conclusion of which will be pro-torture.
3) Republicans and all others who place stock in teevee dramedy will say (of the character that doesn't exist) "See? Even after you think about it, you should still torture. There you go!".
4) Jack Bauer doesn't exist.

[rpannier]

41. That's pretty funny

4) Jack Bauer doesn't exist.

Of course he exists. guliani, brownback, huckabee and romney all said he does.

[defendandprotect]

39. Right-wing needs violent TV to make violence seem normal ....

happens with all of TV -- suddenly "Animal Planet" is violent-!!

One moment we're coming to understand breeds and spirits of dogs --

the next, programs on dog fighting, etc. True for much programming.

For right-wing, violence makes the world go round ...

Drug violence "news" in periodicals and every night on TV in '70's

helped cement idea of addiction as crime rather than health issue.

Here we are 40 years later with Drug War costing us our freedom --

and corrupting government and police enforcement officials.

[antimatter98]

44. Sutherland and the show's producers and writers need to be held to account.

For their enabling through the media, the propaganda put forward by the
Bush administration that 'anything, including torture' is ok, even if
it violates the Geneva Conventions.

Sutherland is personally complicit in this, as are the show's producers
and writers. They need to be held to account, and possibly reported to
the Hague as aiding in war crimes.

I have zero sympathy for a television show that has been an obvious part
of the Bush/Cheney terror, wiretapping, and torture regime.

[valerief]

47. Please, DON'T WATCH THAT CRAP. There've gotta be Seinfeld reruns on instead. nt