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It's sad how conservatives have been influenced by FOX's "24" and adopted Jack Bauer's persona all for themselves. The torture scenes seem to have seeped into their consciousnesses and made them believe that this is how all good Americans should handle impossibly dangerous situations. Not everyone is afflicted with this "ticking time bomb" mentality who watches the last season of Bauer's struggle to be the ultimate American hero who is willing to inflict unbelievable pain on anyone in his path in order to meet his demands. Check out the above video. He's out for vengeance this time and no bloody cell phone is going to stop him. It's torture porn.

Unfortunately, we've seen the show have an impact on our West Point grads, which prompted Gen. Finnegan to speak out against 24 creator Joel Surnow's love of torture.

According to The New Yorker, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, visited the show's set last fall "to voice their concern that the show's central political premise--that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security--was having a toxic effect.

"In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers," writes Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.

"I'd like them to stop," Finnegan said of the show's producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires

Joel Surnow believes he's just being patriotic, but some Iraq war veterans are turning Surnow's creation into a cult of personality and are running for political office using the Jack Bauer brand.

Call them the Jack Bauer Republicans.

Two Iraq veterans who left the military after surviving charges of crimes against detainees are running credible campaigns for Congress. And far from minimizing the incidents, both candidates have put the accusations front and center in their campaigns, attracting rock-star adulation from conservatives nationwide in the process. But critics, including human-rights activists, veterans, and now even defeated primary opponents, warn that their records should disqualify them from office.

Last week, Ilario Pantano won the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 7th District, setting up a challenge to incumbent Democrat Rep. Mike McIntyre in November. In 2001, immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks, Pantano, a veteran who had previously fought in the Gulf War, left his career as a successful producer and media consultant in his native Manhattan to rejoin the Marines and was eventually deployed to Iraq. In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines' slogan “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy” as a message to the local population...read on

Life on the battlefield is hell and it produces all sorts of unspeakable horrors, but to try and run a campaign based on torture and violence is pretty insane.

Matt Yglesias writes:

Love of violence and brutality is deeply ingrained in the conservative worldview, which I think is what you can see here.

The Washington Monthly has a great piece on the very strange military-type Republicans running for office:

Pantano's former primary opponent, Will Breazeale, also an Army veteran of both wars in Iraq, said it would be "dangerous" to elect Pantano to Congress. "To shoot two unarmed prisoners 60 times and put a sign over their dead bodies is inexcusable," Breazeale told Sarlin.

And then there's retired Lt. Col. Allen West (R), running in Florida's 22nd.

West was forced to retire from the Army and fined $5,000 after he admitted to apprehending an Iraqi policeman he suspected of planning an ambush, watching as his troops beat him, and then firing a gunshot by the Iraqi's head in order to scare him into divulging information. West said the decision saved lives by preventing an ambush. But no plot was ever discovered and the policeman in question later told The New York Times that he had no knowledge of any attacks.

Such an incident might be a source of shame for some officers. But not for West, who has developed a superstar following among Republicans by portraying himself as a real-life Jack Bauer.

Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge and current law professor at Georgetown University, told Sarlin both of these GOP candidates have no business seeking public office given their "disgraceful" misconduct.

It's just such an odd dynamic in Republican politics right now -- the party goes out of its way to reward, encourage, and promote those who fail spectacularly. Some of these guys seem like they should be running for the hills, not running for powerful offices.

If I was Pantano's campaign manager I would make sure that I better not piss him off, is all I'm saying. Ya know?

Hat tip to Steve Benen.

Following up on self-acclaimed "nuclear expert" Rudy Giuliani's opinions on Obama's Nuclear Posture Review, we have this quote by Mackenzie Eaglen (Heritage Foundation):

The Nuclear Posture Review unnecessarily takes sovereign U.S. options off the table when responding to various types of chemical or biological attacks.

Americans intuitively understand the flaw in this approach. Special agent Jack Bauer of "24" had to thwart terrorists attempting to steal nerve gas. If this had actually occurred, the President should not tie one hand behind the nation's back when evaluating the appropriate response to defend American citizens.

The mind reels. Really? We're supposed to build national strategy based on fictional action dramas? Well, I suppose it's not unprecedented.

The man responsible for trying to make torture a moral imperative for America now gets the opportunity to produce an eight-hour miniseries about the Kennedy family.

Joel Surnow is swapping “real time” political intrigue for historical realism. The “24″ co-creator is executive producing “The Kennedys,” an eight-hour miniseries about one of America’s most iconic political families, for the History Channel. Unlike “24,” however, “The Kennedys” will be as historically accurate as possible and not feature any gimmickry.

“We’re not trying to be too clever about it,” said Surnow, who developed the project with Muse Entertainment for the Network. “We’re just telling the story on an episode by episode basis.”

Surnow says he and series writer Steve Kronish were most interested in cobbling together a dynastic story about family ambition. “That some of the most important events of the 20th century, such as the Bay of Pigs or the civil rights movement, is in the background, is almost besides the point,” he said. Focusing on the idea of a father living out his ambitions through his sons (”primarily Jack and Bobby, though Teddy was in the mix”), the series — which Surnow likens more to a season of the “Sopranos” than a traditional miniseries — will take place between the years of 1960 and 1968, but with plenty of flashbacks, such as Joe Sr. being rejected by a Harvard club.

He's not a partisan hack at all. He simply makes the case that the Kennedys are just like the Sopranos, who made sure to whack as many people after they ate their cannolis and espresso as possible.

He also decries anyone who may try to tie his conservative politics into the project. “My politics have never guided my interest in stories and movies,” he said. “I completely understand where critics are coming from, because of my creating the ‘1/2 Hour News Hour’ show for Fox News and the issue over torture on ‘24.’ But it’s honestly not going to have much play in terms of where this story comes out. Steve Kronish is politically different from me, and at the end of the day, we’re telling a story about a family. So it’s not about the politics.” (Fox News is owned by News Corp, as is the Wall Street Journal.)

Now why would we think Surnow is a right-wing hack simply for creating a TV show that had to scale back the amount of torture he depicted and a comedy show for FOX News that attacked progressives and Democrats entirely.

Using Limbaugh and Coulter as your stars was just in good fun for Joel.

How stupid are we to think his politics would ever seep into this production?

After reading this, I have to conclude that Conservatives really can't tell reality from fantasy and are easily manipulated by movies and TV. I'm starting to understand why the Brent Bozells are always trying to sue some TV show or other. They think it's real; I mean, why would anyone sue a Buffy TVS episode, right?

Anyway, Digby's post covers the Jack Bauer influence on the right wing party.

It's very creepy and disturbing.

The Wapo also reports that the thing was just about to be operational before the plug was pulled last month. The plot thickens.

The LA Times says that the "CIA Was A Long Way From Jason Bourne" but when I read that description of a secret hit squad with no limits, I was reminded of something else, which I wrote a year ago:

Fanboy Interrogations

Dahlia Lithwick has a great column in this week's Newsweek about the biggest influence on the thinking of members of the Bush administration in regards to its "interrogation" policies: Jack Bauer.

I've written a ton about this shocking phenomenon over the years, but even I didn't know that John Yoo actually cited the show in his book:

"What if, as the Fox television program '24' recently portrayed, a high-level terrorist leader is caught who knows the location of a nuclear weapon?"...read on

Read her full article because she ends with this.

Rush was actually asking the right question. I laughed at him at the time,thinking he was an embarrassing torture fanboy. But it turns out that the military really was getting ideas from the show:

According to British lawyer and writer Philippe Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantanamo in September of 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial new interrogation techniques including water-boarding, sexual humiliation, and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas."

This probably worries me as much as anything I've heard about the antics of the Bush administration. These people are so fundamentally unserious that they found inspiration in a television show when the stakes were about as high as they could possibly be. It's horrifying to think these powerful people were this daft. But they were.

It seems it was actually worse than I thought.

Seeing the Forest: The voters are smarter than the media.

Newshoggers: They're also wiser than the high-ranking officials who feel the American public lacks "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats" to our national security and that "the correction for that… is an attack." Hmm, maybe a domestic propaganda campaign would aid that agenda.

Glenn Greenwald: It's also easier to deceive the public when "actual journalists" serve as uncritical, dismissive government spokespeople.

Amygdala: The New, New Colossus, in a cruel, mocking land where decency knows no home.

Human Rights Watch: Is waterboarding more like swimming freestyle, or the backstroke? Have these officials no shame about widespread and systemic abuse authorized straight from the top? Let's put Jack Bauer on it, because when you're secretly, radically overturning constitutional and international law, who needs expert advice or historical fact when you have specious reasoning and fantasy on your side?

Guest roundup by Batocchio. Please e-mail submissions and tips to Batocchio9 at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

Download | play Download | play (h/t Logan)

Obviously, the Republican leadership has gotten to Sen. Kit Bond with the message: You're. Not. Helping. Our. Cause. by likening waterboarding to swimming. So Bond goes on C-Span's Washington Journal and tries to clarify his comment with increasing incoherence.

Apparently, he meant that there was as much variety in waterboarding techniques as there are swimming strokes--still not helping, Senator Bond. The kind of waterboarding the Japanese did to our soldiers in WWII--bad...the kind we did (?--have we stopped?) to our soldiers in training--fine. Not particularly sure that's helpful either, Sen. Bond. Unfortunately for those of us who actually understand the issue at hand, he doesn't specify which kind we've done to detainees like Maher Arar, or if it's acceptable. That glaring omission is certainly helpful to the Republicans torture apologist platform.

However, he does feel a blanket banning on waterboarding--such as the one in the Geneva Conventions that we signed--is bad, because it then prevents us from using it in an extreme national emergency--the Jack Bauer scenario raising its ugly head again. Bingo, Sen. Bond! You found the party line. How amoral of you.

This Jack Bauer fantasy hero worship is really getting out of hand...

2006 SENATE RACE RANKINGS: Hotline's editor-in-chief, Chuck Todd's analysis of the races....and vet and senate candidate, James Webb, shows he knows how to respond to vile GOP slurs. In other congressional news, it appears that the Ney operation is crumbling. Pete Seeger on our friend and NY Dem candidate for congress, John Hall.

Sadly, No! In Praise of Robert Somerby

Sooner Thought: We know the proudly ignorant G-Dub doesn't read, but apparently, nobody in that chickensh*t outfit does. BushCo could have saved themselves the trouble of pissing off the entire world by peeking into their bank records and simply read Loretta Napoleoni’s book, which lays out how terror funding really works.

Taylor Marsh: Jack Bauer would laugh at Rush...who may have a new gig.

Martini Republic: Here's a story that slipped under the radar..

Threading Water: State of Their Union...the audacious mendacity of these people continues to amaze us. A veteran's mother gives a State of Our Family Address....and another veteran's mother got arrested for wearing a t-shirt which stated a fact. Think Progress live-blogged Junior's speech and have a slew of posts debunking his pathological lying. And one final fiction exposed

The Uncommon American: Is James Frey is an American hero? Domestic Lying by the Liar in Chief should get as much attention.

This just in: Jack Bauer is a Democrat

BUSHCO: fouling America's air and water is OK.

The Rude Pundit: Everything means less than zero...

exposed

The Uncommon American: Is James Frey is an American hero? Domestic Lying by the Liar in Chief should get as much attention.

This just in: Jack Bauer is a Democrat

BUSHCO: fouling America's air and water is OK.

The Rude Pundit: Everything means less than zero...