24 to End

All Jack Bauer fans are in mourning this morning. 24 announced yesterday that this will be the last season.

Although there have been rumors and debate about the future of Fox’s hit series “24,” the official word came down today that the series will be coming to an end.

EW.com reports that Kiefer Sutherland said that “24″ will not be moving to NBC, despite earlier talks. Sutherland and executive producer Howard Gordon decided it was time to end the TV run.

Have no fear, while the series will end on the May 24th, there is a film already in the works. The series finale will lead directly into the film.

In a World of Gray: the ACORN Fiasco is Black and White

It was disturbing if not surprising that earlier in the week ACORN filed suit against James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Andrew Breitbart. The videos the first two shot and the third put on his web site have sent the group into a tailspin. They are desperate and they are lashing out.

I saw Hannah Giles on the Fox News show Red Eye a couple weeks back. She told the host, Greg Gutfeld, that she never dreamed that the folks at ACORN would ever take her up on her offer to give tax advice to hide her "job" as a prostitute. I found this assertion to be a bit diplomatic and disingenuous. After all, if she didn't think that ACORN was corrupt, she wouldn't have shown up in their office on a sting to root out corruption. She had an instinct. She followed through on that instinct and she exposed some really bad behavior.

ACORN, meanwhile, immediately dug its heels in. They initially lashed out at the filmmakers. They tried to marginalize them. They lashed out at Fox News, which helped drive the story. They did everything but accept any responsibility for the tapes. As soon as the tapes came out, ACORN must have known that their entire operation was threatened. They began doing everything to make sure that ACORN wouldn't disintegrate.

Worse yet, ACORN often defended itself by pointing to all the good works it does: foreclosure prevention, health care for poor, tax services, etc. There's nothing worse than when a group or individual minimizes bad behavior by pointing to the good works they do. How many times did you hear someone defend Reverend Wright by saying he did a lot in the community? That's what ACORN was doing here.

Then, when the media offensive had little effect, ACORN really got desperate. They sued. This is another standard defense for the guilty. If you don't like the message, you shoot the messenger. Of course, in this case, Giles, O'Keefe, and Breitbart all need lawyers. That costs money, it causes stress, and ultimately no matter how strong your case there's always a sense of unknown in our legal system. So, while suing has some stragegic value, it also has real human costs.

In the first season of 24, Jack Bauer described the slippery slope of not doing the right thing.

You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that's all your doing; compromising, because that's the way you think things are done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren't, they weren't bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised... Once.

That's the problem for ACORN. They did the wrong thing once and then again, and soon, that's all they were doing. The problem with doing the wrong thing is that you have to do other wrong things to perpetrate the first wrong thing. Soon, all you're doing is the wrong thing. That's the moral dilemma that Jack understood. It's the position that ACORN is in now. They are rotten to the core, and in order to survive, they have to do everything possible to hide their rotten nature. Their rotten nature was exposed by the video, but by then they had compromised too much.

That's the position that the O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart found themselves in when confronting ACORN. They exposed them long after the group had compromised so much that they didn't know anything else. It was too late for ACORN to do the right thing. All they could do was cover up for the bad they had already done. In the process, they also had to take down the three as well. It wasn't about right and wrong but survival.

The world is full of gray, but not in this case. In this case, there are clear good guys and clear bad guys. O'Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart were acting as enterprising journalists and entrepeneurs and their ultimate agenda was to bring the truth to light. ACORN's ultimate agenda was to subvert the truth. Each one of all their actions reflected their guiding agendas. One side was set on the path of good and the other on the path of bad.

24 the Review: the Internal Conflicts of Jack Bauer

Introduction: Warning, there will be a spoiler or two from prior seasons as I go along. So, if you are watching 24 out of order, I may ruin it for you. Though, if you are watching 24 out of order, the show will ruin it for you anyway...

Long term fans of 24 know that not only Jack's life changed when his wife died at the end of season one, but frankly, the way he viewed the world and his job changed. Jack has become significantly more self destructive and he rarely views his own life with any real worth. He is in many ways trying desperately to join his wife and end the terrible pain that her death has caused him. It's for this reason that he always seems to take the path of most resistance. That's because it is a path for which he sees little to lose. He has become beholden mostly to the mission at hand and little else. Furthermore, he treats those that get in the way of his mission with as little care as he often treats his own life when executing a mission.

The only time that Jack strays from this very cold and yet very calculating philosophy is when it involves his own family. He showed an uncharacteristic humanity in working against CTU when they attempted to use his nephew as a pawn in the sixth season. Furthermore, he has always tried to do everything to protect his daughter. Yet, that's the only time when his humanity comes out. When faced with a choice between saving the life of love interest's former husband Paul Raines and a witness, he put a gun to doctor's heads to force them to save the witness.

In many ways, Jack actually shows a deeper humanity. He sees past the human being in front of him and to all the faceless and nameless human beings that would suffer if his mission is not accomplished. In this way, he is the ultimate spy. He has a laser light focus on the mission at hand. Yet, it is the internal conflict that has become the central theme of this season. All of his draconian and heavy handed tactics have become second nature to him. When he needed to get information from a corrupt Secret Service agent, he "naturally" suggested that the agent's family be kidnapped and used as leverage. Now, he turned Ebaku's unwitting girlfriend into an asset and a double agent.

While all of this comes naturally to Jack, it is anything but natural to the FBI agent Renee Walker. The only thing more horrifying to her than having to try and kidnap a wife and child is that the whole process is oh so natural to Jack. She wants Jack to show the same kind of humanity because his lack of humanity is what's most frightening to her. Everyone that questions Jack's methods constantly alludes to the death of his wife, but none of them seem to get it. It was her death that took all of that away. He got it back only fleetingly when he fell in love with Audrey Raines, but in the end, Jack's own humanity died with his wife. He has resigned to a life of pain. He has resigned to being driven solely by patriotic duty, myopic duty to mission, and his own life and humanity are things he sacrificed long ago when he held his dead wife at the end of the first season.

The 24 Review: More on the Torture Allegory

After a very slow start to the season, the show is finally growing on. The show has regained its well known suspense and action. The scenes at the FBI are also now starting to create some of the inter office politics that adds its own suspense to the show.

This season's allegory on the ideological battle over the aggressive terror techniques employed by President Bush. Jack, himself, represents the Bush techniques. Jack has in every season done what he had to in order to protect the nation. He's suffered overwhelming personal loss and struggle as a result of his myopic pursuit of the protection of the nation. Yet, he's never had to face any serious professional action for his behavior. While he's lost jobs before, he's also always been able to find other jobs. This season his entire approach to being a spy is in question. In much the same way, Bush's tough anti terror techniques are face the same sort of scrutiny.

On the other side is agent Larry Moss. He takes the Barack Obama, dovish Democrat world view. He believes in strict adherence to criminal standards. Just as the Republican's losses in 2008 could be seen as a rejection of his anti terror policies, Moss sees Jack's appearance in front of Congress as a rejection of Jack's myopic pursuit of safety.

In the middle is Agent Walker. Agent Walker represents America's terror policies. Constantly Walker finds herself between Moss and Jack. She is pulled in both directions. So far, she continues to side with Jack, but it's clearly weighed on her. Could we see this as America's realization that Bush has gone too far? This is the sort of struggle that will continue throughout the season.

To fill out the allegory, we have Chloe. Chloe represents talk radio. Talk radio has, since the beginning, been in favor of Bush's anit terror techniques fairly uncritically. In much the same way, Chloe has always trusted that Jack was doing the right thing. That was clear in her impassioned defense of Jack to Moss in the middle of this hour. Bill can be viewed as Fox News. Fox News is generally in favor of Bush's tough techniques, but their is not nearly as unlimited or as uncritical as talk radio. Bill takes much the same approach as Fox News. Bill usually agrees with Jack's judgment but it isn't uncritical and unanimous.

What we are still missing are representations of some of those on the left. We should soon see representations of the nutroots, liberal Congress, and the MSM. We could see Ebaku as the terrorists. His girlfriend represents the American people. We are in constant danger and often we don't know just how close to danger we are. As Ebaku is about to attack his girlfriend, something that should happen early in the next hour, we will all ask just how far everyone should go to save her. That is of course not a simple answer, neither in 24, and certainly not in reality.

24 Jack is Back...The Allegory II

I have been unable to write anything following episodes of 24 because I have been so disappointed with the season so far that frankly, I have had absolutely nothing to say. That finally all changed last night. Last night's episode was finally full of the action, suspense, and conflict that has made 24 one of the greatest pieces of artistry of all time. To me, what differentiated last night's episode from much of the season as a whole is the screen time that Jack Bauer got. The season as a whole has featured significantly less time for Jack but last night he finally grabbed much of the attention. Because I have been totally unimpressed with most of the rest of the cast, the reduced screen time has made the show bland until last night. As such, hopefully, the show will continue to be redeemed going forward.

Now then, one way to look at 24 is as an allegory for the ideological battles that surround our own GWOT. I believe this season is an allegory for the ideological battles surrounding our own interrogation techniques. What is and isn't appropriate, and furthermore, how far should our nation go in getting information. The pinnacle scene in this allegory was the scene with Ross, Agent Walker and Agent Moss. The President's husband is kidnapped and there is less than an hour to find him and rescue him. Jack has information about a rogue agent named Vossler. Jack suggests that Agent Walker go to Vossler's home and hold the family hostage in an effort to extract information from the Agent. Agent Moss objects. The debate that ensues on screen is very much an allegory for the debate over these techniques that happen on television, in academia, and mostly within government itself. On screen in 24, the forces that support tough interrogations won. Agent Walker agrees. Ultimately, Vossler's family is used to break Vossler and he gives up vital information. Yet, Agent Walker is herself deeply affected. As such, the overall debate is far from over.