I’m not sure if it’s any worse than having a president who thinks The Flintstones is a historically accurate portrayal of the birth of our civilization.

Let's all say it together. If members of the armed forces are looking to television soap operas for instruction on appropriate interrogation techniques, that's a depressing statement on the quality of training they are receiving.

But, maybe we should be thankful that they are not watching "Reno 911"

It saddens and annoys me to think that some soldiers are really that stupid. 24 is a television show about espionage, no more or less realistic than Alias or Mission: Impossible. Yet the right continues to pick and choose elements they like and proclaim it a purely right wing show, while ignoring the entire context of the show (gee, they do the same thing when they criticize entertainment too!).

Over its six years, the show has contained far left-wing plot lines and somewhat right-wing plotlines. It's an apolitical show in that it's about the characters, not the politics. Sometimes we agree with the character's actions, sometimes we do not (like any other show worth watching, be it Law and Order SVU, Scrubs, or Lost).

If soldiers really are being shown isolated clips from the show and using that as a training tool, then there is really nothing the show's creators can do about it. They can craft rich, shades of grey storylines that vocalize the left and right wing positions to their hearts content, but the soldiers will only see and approve of the stuff that already allegedly justifies their current worldview (ie - more pedophiles read kiddie porn because they are already drawn to kiddie porn via being a pedophile).

Yes, Jack and gang do occiasionaly break the law and torture people and sometimes it works. But sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it has an averse result and there is always, always a terrible personal cost for the characters we like and care about. That, since season one, has been one of the main themes of 24... the fact that terrible things may occasionally be attempted to protect us, but that 'neccessary evils' are still very very evil in the end.

Scott Mendelson

Oh, come on. I mean, sure, a lot of America takes its cues from television and movies, but I think it's a dodge to try to blame "24" on bad treatment of prisoners. That feels like a cover story, like Dan Quayle blaming "Murphy Brown" for our cultural woes. More GOP secular culture-bashing, as pointless as it is meaningless.

More to the point, it tries to camouflage the very real responsibility the Bush League leadership has for creating the climate of lawlessness that led to the abuses to begin with! They knew just what they were doing the minute they get up the prisoner camps in Cuba, and when they adopted their rendition torture-go-round way of circumnavigating international laws.

It's not Jack Bauer's fault that prisoner abuse and torture has gone on. Rather, the fault lies with George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, and many other members of the Bush League who think extremism in defense of imperial executive authority is no vice.

What next, blaming video games for Abu Ghraib?

I am sure we can find some way to pin this on Ozzy or Heavy Metal in general.

Fox would never mean to suggest that...what a minute, maybe they would

Let's get real, folks. "24" is yet another piece of propaganda, and should we really be surprised? This is, after all, a product of the Fox Network, home of Bill O'Reilly and company. Stop supporting propaganda--turn off the television set!

Not only will the lessons dipicted by the actors finally (after years of being lost) bring them all safely home, but the whole world would rejoice. Just sit right back...

Boy, don't you remember the good old days of the 50's & 60's, when TV was all as pure as "Leave It To Beaver" and "My Three Sons"? We never had any of these types of problems back then. Yep, we can certainly blame our military woes on "24". And while we're at it, let's ding "Scrubs" for Medicare.

Visiting an old pal a couple weeks ago, talking politics, the guy says, "In this house, we admire Jack Bauer." I ask, "Who is Jack Bauer?"

The guy and his wife are amazed that I do not know! They laugh, and make comments about how out of touch I am, and what a rich story this will be to tell all their right-wing friends.

It's true! It's not just Murphy Brown anymore. Americans believe "24." They use it in serious discussions of the real world. Post-Reality America!

First old man Sutherland shows the troops that its perfectly all right to torture your colleagues in Mash, and now Kiefer, and who names the their son Kiefer but a real masochist, shows the troops its all right to torture the audience in 24. Where will it all end? Of course, 24 may be as close to the real thing that men like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have ever gotten. Certainly, Alberto Gonzales has learned a great deal about wiretapping from the show, and Bush took one of his most famous lines from Jack Bauer: "I don't have time to explain right now; you'll just have to trust me." Even though 24 is one of the most unrealistic shows on television, I do see where it could be confusing to some, especially at Fox News. I mean when has Bush ever worked a 24 hour day or even a 24 week? Better yet, when has Bush ever succeeded at anything? The only things George Bush and Jack Bauer have in common is that they were both addicted to drugs, and their daughters never seem to listen to them.

Sheesh. I was just about to defend "24" until I read the show's creator, Joel Surnow's, comments elsewhere on Salon (see Scott Lamb's "The Fix" today, quoting Surnow from the New Yorker). Surnow's a Limbaugh fan, and genuinely thinks torture works, even after the meeting described in the piece here. I'd really like to think of the show as escapist entertainment, but if the people behind it do, indeed, see it as deliberately influential or reflective of some twisted notion of right-wing "patriotism," that's a wee bit different.