Is 24 a neoconservative sex fantasy?

Apparently Wolf Blitzer posed this question on his show last night. (Disclosure: I was eating dinner when this segment aired and missed it altogether.)

Neoconservative? Who knows? Fantasy? No doubt. How else would you describe a slick and scary alt-universe where cell phones never need charging and Southern California has no traffic? This is a world where suspects are named, tracked, found, interrogated, tortured, and left to die off screen within an hour or two. Federal agents divine complex terror cell movements without sleep, permission, or evidence. And with all of the surveillance equipment and electronic mobile waterboarding with web access, the viewer can only believe that FBI means Federal Batman Institute.

But why neoconservative, exactly?

1. The torture? By my memory, Season Four found Jack Bauer torturing four suspects in a single shift. (347 suspects a year, at that rate.) Who knows if or when the neoconservative movement became the party of torture. As far as I have heard, it was a single memo that caused all the fuss. And aren't other conservatives, even many liberals on board with the "ticking time bomb" caveat? (Which Reason Magazine takes down quite deftly here.)

On the other side of the debate, headlines such as "Torture Chamber: FOX's 24 terrifies viewers into believing its bizarre and convoluted plot twists" deeply underestimate network audiences.


2. The Arab-centrism? In other words, more of the terrorists ought to be home-grown, Timothy McVeigh-styled nihilists. But the show takes pains to have plenty of these.


3. The neoconservative characters? Maybe -- but what about the rest of the characters?


4. The frequency of attacks? It's a TV show, people. Would you rather watch the agents eating turkey sandwiches and talking football?


My point? I would hate to see 24 join SUVs, Ben & Jerrys, March of the Penguins, sushi, Wal-Mart, male grooming, NASCAR, french fries and CVS Pharmacy as another of those red state/blue state cultural flashpoints. The cultural war in all of its evergreen splendor is stupid and accomplishes little, other than making pundits feel better for scoring a significant point.

And yes, I feel better.