Getting Dirty in Real Time: Kiefer madness on Fox
Beston, Paul
Getting Dirty in Real Time THE LAST WE SAW special agent Jack Bauer, he was walking into a California sunrise and headed for the Mexican border, a classic Western hero on the run from the corruptions of law and...
...It comes in an elegant wooden box with the E. Howard name and a numbered certificate of authenticity...
...A clock apBY PAUL HESTON 40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2005 pears on the screen at different points to mark the time...
...that one does not have to be innocent to be right...
...Now, they've developed the Continental Atomic Wristwatch-blending quality craftsmanship, distinctive design and atomic accuracy into one watch...
...24 is also refreshing in its lack of interest in the standard hobby horses of gender and race...
...24 as a whole is patriotic in its honesty about the nature of our adversaries and its refusal to indulge in the moral equivocation favored by most critically lauded television dramas...
...or fretting that "we're just as bad as they are...
...Perhaps somewhere a critic is attempting to explain how the son of one of Hollywood's renowned lefties has become an iconic star by playing a fearless terrorist fighter...
...Since then, the expert watchmakers at E. Howard and Company have been known around the world for the accuracy and classic elegance of their timepieces...
...42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2005 It will stay in your family for centuries, cite a bit longer...
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...Jack is not above pausing at high-stress moments to try patching up his always disastrous love life over his always-charged cell phone...
...It is a message one urgently wishes to believe, but since the terrorists the government is fighting in real life are Islamic, 24 is only depicting reality...
...He decides that he'll need to bring them the informer's head...
...Bauer realizes that he will have to re-infiltrate the group to get information, but first he'll need to regain their trust...
...When the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with a dubious record condemning terrorism that still manages to get White House invites, protested, Kiefer Sutherland taped a public service announcement urging viewers to remember that Muslim Americans are on our side in the war against terrorism...
...Now, "America's Timekeeper" has created a high-quality analog watch in silver and gold plated styles...
...The standard for timekeeping throughout the US, the Atomic Clock uses sophisticated technology to measure the vibration of atoms, which is constant...
...This good-looking watch is also tough, with a scratch-resistant crystal and polished silver or gold stainless steel case that's water resistant...
...The watch is designed so that it can still receive the signal- so you get traditional elegant styling with modern timekeeping accuracy...
...But most of these problems fall within the realm of suspension of disbelief...
...Though some read feminism into the show's gallery of can-do, deadly females (others read misogyny), the show doesn't speechify one way or the other...
...It regularly plunges into issues like torture, deceit, and even murder as a way of getting at some enduring truths: that war affords few opportunities for moral purity...
...You never hear CTU characters wondering while perched over their computers, "Why do they hate us...
...Likewise, America's political leaders are too busy trying to stop nuclear holocausts to give potted speeches about race...
...But this is about as much pontification as we ever get out of Jack Bauer...
...in Real Time 1 HE LAST WE SAW special agent Jack Bauer, he was walking into a California sunrise and headed for the Mexican border, a classic Western hero on the run from the corruptions of law and government...
...If you are not completely satisfied with the watch for any reason, simply return i within 90 days for a refund of the purchase price...
...By the time Bauer tells Marwan, "For all the hatred that you have for this country, you don't understand it very well," the effects of the CAIR protests seemed to have long since dissipated...
...There is also the matter of the program's serial structure, which is not compatible with the one-off format of a typical drama or sitcom...
...A subsequent episode featured a few Islamic Americans giving earnest speeches expressing their desire to fight for America...
...The most recent season pulled no punches, for example, in its portrayal of the terrorist mastermind Habib Marwan...
...More striking even than its innovations, though, is the show's political and moral toughness...
...Each season represents one day during which a cataclysmic terrorist plot is about to unfold...
...The most serious problems with the show are itsoften implausible plot twists, like the presence of a mole within CTU every season or the curious inability of almost any CTU commando to survive field operations, other than Jack...
...When Mason excoriates him, Bauer replies, "That's the problem with you, George, you're not willing to get your hands dirty...
...While 24 is becoming a pop culture institution, it remains to be seen whether it will flourish in reruns...
...His character faces all kinds of stress, including coup attempts engineered by his own staff, but his race is never discussed...
...Sutherland himself conceded this point in an interview around the same time...
...that we must still have the courage to make distinctions between unpleasant options, and act on our choices...
...In the interrogation room, Bauer shoots and kills the informer, to the astonishment of his superior, CTU director George Mason...
...led a commando raid on the Chinese embassy to abduct a Chinese national with knowledge of a terrorist plot...
...He's unorthodox, but he gets results," one of Bauer's colleagues says of him...
...The appeal of reruns is the ability to flick on and flick off, getting resolution in a matter of minutes and moving on to other things...
...Then, in 1842, a small American manufacturer of fine timepieces began to produce clocks and watches that rivaled those of the Europeans...
...Under the circumstances, saving the American would have been a merely sentimental choice...
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...Designed for a lifetime of accuracy...
...Once you've selected the proper time zone, you never have to touch it again...
...He doesn't have Clint Eastwood's poncho and cigarillo, but he does have a cell phone with a scramble filter...
...Both statements apply to 24 as well...
...He does not turn out to be, as he might have on some other shows, a soulful human being fighting for a cause that, in the subjectivist's moral universe, can be readily defended...
...24 is like a ring brawler who has a few bad rounds but then comes back swinging again, apparently rejuvenated...
...As played by Kiefer Sutherland, Bauer is a character of amazing gusto, a fall-on-his-sword patriot whose efforts to save America involve actions that would normally be considered criminal, and that even under the conditions in which he works are at least morally debatable...
...24 does not reward occasional involvement...
...Never set your watch again...
...The group in turn has ties to the terrorists plotting that season's mayhem...
...It's still TV, after all, though its scenarios are distressingly real...
...The reason this watch is so accurate is because it gets its signal from the official US Atomic Clock in Fort Collins, Colorado...
...As befits a man of action, he immediately gets down to the practicalities of the situation...
...In the 24 season just past, Bauer held up a convenience store in order to keep tabs on a "hostile...
...No doubt such people exist, but the script still read as if authored by CAIR...
...It automatically adjusts for Daylight Savings Time, 30-day months and leap years...
...For this reason, it is accurate to within a billionth of a second, and it will take approximately 6 million years for it to lose a second...
...But then, the left can't be terribly enamored of a program in which the Secretary of Defense ends an altercation with his left-wing son by snarling, "Spare me your sixth-grade Michael Moore logic...
...Bauer is basically a superhero, but more in the fashion of Marvel comics than DC comics—he brings the gift of freedom to others, but mostly ruin to himself and those he loves...
...Whatever its future holds, for sheer audacity it may never top a moment from the second season...
...Reruns will have to wait, though, as Fox has renewed the show for two more seasons...
...irstSTREET NOVATION TECHNOLOGY SEE IT HERE FIRST Colonial Heights, VA 23834 1998 Ruffin Mill Road rn (NI www.firststreetonline.com formerly TechnoScour...
...You're going to have to trust me," Bauer often says...
...However over the top his adventures may sometimes go, he is one of the most stirring characters the small screen has ever produced, and certainly on a short list of great TV patriots...
...Until now, watches designed to receive the radio signal had to have plastic cases...
...As one character puts it, "This is a dirty business, and we're going to have to get our hands dirty if we want to fix it...
...THE SHOW'S RESILIENCE owes a good deal to Sutherland's mesmerizing portrayal of Jack Bauer...
...And come next season, a new name...
...Its cliffhanger nature has the immediacy of a sporting event, and as any sports buff can tell you, watching a game on tape just isn't the same...
...Since its plots often involve Islamic terrorists, 24 has run afoul of political correctness and some Muslim lobbying groups...
...When one of his men is apprehended, Marwan rings up a lawyer from "Amnesty Global," who quickly helps secure his release...
...One of the program's enduring characters is David Palmer, the country's first black president...
...It's a delicious slap at the organization that JULY/AUGUST 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 41 GETTING DIRTY IN REAL TIME recently branded America's efforts to detain terrorists "the gulag of our time...
...At least as concerns America's role in the world, this is not a message the left is comfortable with...
...The protests clearly had an effect, though...
...24 as a whole is patriotic in its honesty about the nature of our adversaries and its refusal to indulge in the moral equivocation favored by most critically lauded television dramas...
...Being a TV show, 24 also makes occasional stops into soap opera romance, often at the most unlikely times...
...We are so sure that you will like it too that we are offering it with a free 10-year warranty on the movement and our exclusive 90-day home trial...
...For centuries, if someone wanted a watch worthy of passing on to future generations, it had to come from Europe...
...each episode represents one real-time hour...
...This finely crafted watch blends past and future with elegant, easy-to-read analog display and a handy digital readout, showing Day and Month, Seconds, or US Time Zone at the touch of a button...
...Jack Bauer is questioning a small-time criminal who has turned informer against a group that Bauer had previously infiltrated...
...temporarily quit the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) so that, no longer a federal employee, he could freely torture a suspect for information...
...I'd suggest you roll up your sleeves...
...The show, which completed its fourth season in May, is known for its innovative structure, its suspense, and its plot twists...
...For fastest service, call toll-free 24 hours a day 800-922-2792 To order by mail, please call for details...
...Fortunately, such effects did not linger long...
...Paul Beston is a writer in New York City...
...He is also attuned to the emphasis liberal democracies place on rights and due process...
...and forced doctors at gunpoint to abandon medical treatment for an innocent American, the estranged husband of his girlfriend, in favor of saving the Chinese national, who was wounded in the raid...
...No one has sold more Atomic Watches than we have, and this is the one that met our high standards for looks and performance...
...Perched over the dead man's body, he looks up at George Mason and utters perhaps the show's most memorable line: "I'm going to need a hack saw...
...He's given up his identity as Jack Bauer and is, at least until the next season of 24, the new Man with No Name...
...Rather, he is a ruthless killer who is like many jihadi front men in that he preaches the virtues of death and sacrifice while making elaborate plans for his own survival...
Vol. 38 • July 2005 • No. 6
