MagneticMediaFed

I don’t want to get too political here, but I just finished watching this week’s Meet The Press (my favorite of the Sunday morning Yack-shows) and Tim Russert had on President Clinton as a guest. During the conversation the issue of torture came up. On a previous appearance Clinton had said he supported sanctioned exceptions to the country’s current anti-torture policy. Here, he said he had changed his mind on the issue — and this is where the connection to television starts to take place.

Clinton spoke of the “Jack Bauer” scenario. On 24, he pointed out, whenever the President gives the OK for Jack to torture a suspect, the result is always negative for the President and for the country, but when Jack acts alone, knowing the consequences of his actions, things tend to work out for the best (or whatever definition of “best” you want to go with when nuclear annihilation tends to be the consequence). In short, Clinton thinks that a country shouldn’t sanction torture, but if the agent actually involved with a situation chooses to take action for the greater good, knowing the legal repercussions of those actions, it might not be a bad thing.

Policy aside, it’s always interesting to hear someone in politics so directly references the actions of a fictional television character. The question I wish Russert had followed up with would be whether President Clinton thought last season of 24 was as lame as most of the rest of us. I’m also curious if he thinks the relocation of the series to Washington D.C. in the upcoming seventh season is a good move. (It is.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Commentary, NBC, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.