24

Started watching 24 lately. I am way late to this particular cultural phenomenon, 24 being in its fourth or fifth season, I think. At least three members of my family have been into 24 for several years. When we were in Hawaii almost three years ago, Mr. Dry Wit made sure that he saw 24. But I guess it's better late than never.

Besides 24 being really entertaining, two things about it strike me as fascinating.

The first one is one that I probably don't appreciate fully because I haven't watched the past seasons. There was an African-American President on 24, played by the actor with the deep voice who does the Allstate commercials now. The thing about this is that it feels completely right. God knows, the country should be ready for a President of color. It's only been 143 years since the Emanication Proclamation, 138 years since the 14th Amendment, 43 years since the March on Washington. It's about time. If Colin Powell had run in 1996, he might have won, although it's pretty unlikely that he'll ever get to be President now. Similarly, Condelezza Rice might have had the potential to be President, but that seems pretty unlikely at this point, too. Maybe Harvey Gantt if he had beaten Jesse Helms in 1990 (still more than a little bitter about that one). Maybe Henry Cisneros if he hadn't had an affair. Maybe Barack Obama.

So I think that most of the country is ready for a President of color. But you still hear things like about how unnamed Bush supporters went around South Carolina in 2000 campaigning against John McCain by talking about his "black baby" (a child that McCain and his wife adopted from southeast Asia, I believe). That kind of stuff has to make you wonder.

Seeing 24 portray an African-American President and have that President -- President Palmer -- basically be exactly the kind of thoughtful, decisive, tough kind of guy that you would want as a President is a kind of very useful cultural thought experiment.

The second thing about 24 that I find really interesting is that it makes you think about what kind of government behavior would be acceptable if, says, terrorists were ready to set off a nuclear bomb or release lots of nerve gas. The lead character on 24, Jack Bauer, does some awful stuff, but always in the specifically defined context of one day in which the end of the world is about to happen. In that context, would be OK for government agents to torture people to find out what they need to know?

That kind of thing certainly doesn't seem wrong in the show's context. Use tasers on people or threaten to cut their eyes out to get information? Well, if there are guys driving around LA with nuclear bombs or nerve gas, that might be OK by me, I suppose. Being a bit of a geek, I've always been pretty interested in constitutional law (I remember being surprised hearing about eminent domain for the first time in fifth grade) and, you know, torturing people doesn't strike me as the most constitutional thing to do. The Constitution isn't just a statement of the rights that people in the U.S. have -- it's also a statement about what the government can't do. But what are you going to do in the most extreme circumstances?

The key to this mental exercise is the line-drawing, I guess. Where does this kind of thing go too far? This last week, Jack wouldn't help terrorists release nerve gas in a shopping mall, though the President ordered him to do so because that would have been a way to find the rest of the nerve gas that the terrorists have. Clearly, Jack is the lead character and you, the audience, are supposed to sympathize with him as the guy who is drawing the right lines. (BTW, this lionization of Jack gets to be a little much at times.) There's little doubt that, in the kind of horrific situation that is portrayed each season on 24, horrific choices would have to be made. As I understand, on Sept. 11, someone (Cheney, I believe) issued an order to shoot down Flight 93 if it got near Washington.

You don't have to buy the choices that Jack makes on the show. (There was an almost incomprehensible op-ed piece in the S.F. Chronicle last week that suggested that the mere fact that 24 exists and displays torture demonstrates that our politics have become totally unacceptable because the display of fictional torture shows that torture has become far too accepted in society. At least, I think that's what the piece was saying.) But I don't think that there is any other media creation at this point that is presenting anything that makes people think about the choices that may have to be made at some point in responding to terrorism. A lot of people seem far too willing to "make the tough decisions" about terrorism and a lot of people seem too willing to believe that such decisions won't ever have to be made. 24 is worth watching if only because it makes you think about such decisions and their consequences.