Friday, January 09, 2009

Getting Their Jack On


There be some folks at NPR that love them their Jack Bauer. Why just last month, little Stevie Inskeep was getting his Jack on just thinking about wanting to hit an uncooperative prisoner. It's not just the guys at NPR either; Pam Fessler was pretty jazzed for Jack just last spring.

Now that there's a mood in the ruling class to sweep a few little unpleasantries under the rug and move on with the surging victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, you wouldn't expect NPR to miss the chance to get a little Foxy Jack back on the show.

So this morning Ari Shapiro enjoys a deep intellectual Fox commercial for 24.

We hear the Jack character at a Congressional hearing say, "Am I above the law? No sir, I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. But please do not sit there with that smug look on your face."

Shapiro comments that "this sounds like a real hearing that took place a few months ago with some Bush administration officials called to testify about torture." Ari must be thinking about NPR News' fantasy coverage (try to find it if you can) of the House and Senate hearings that actually did occur.

You have to love how even though Abu Ghraib and other US torture atrocities became public in 2004, Keifer Sutherland says "with regards to the torture aspect....Then obviously the events in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and everything else became a real focal point for us as a nation to look at what we were doing. So it only seemed sensible that we as a show would do the same thing." Kind of fits the pattern of all these criminals of the past 8 years experiencing conversions on the death bed of the Bush presidency...ugh.

But Ari mainly wants to plug the excitement of the show. He asks Sutherland, "Does your pulse jump when you hear that little ticking second sound?....Mine does!"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, Ari was embarrassing himself, like a giddy little puppy. So exciting to interview TEH TERRORIST FIGHTER JACK !!! AWETHOME!

and, Saturday morning...

Scott Simon tried to make another agonizing moral piety a la Olbermann or Edward R. Murrow, but he's just... yuck. Actually, I was betting that he would NOT point his laser-sharp moral vision on Gaza: hooray for me.

RepubLiecan said...

In regard to what Anonymous @ 7:22 AM typed:

I offer my apologies in advance, but can't resist asking, I wonder what other physical reaction Ari has when he hears that ticking?

In regard to the lil' Scotty comment I had similar thoughts about Scott the Sermonizer as I listened to WESAT this morning. A few weeks back his essay tried to explain the unknowable nature of evil among us, but this week he couldn't take time to acknowledge the death and suffering of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israelis, let alone call it evil. Instead he used his time to humorously suggest that Obama might be able to reduce our national debt by hawking for corporate amerika as has been so successfully demonstrated by the No Promotion Rejected model.

Is it April 1st already? What other explanation is there for the atrocious and disgusting bit of slapstick he did with Joan Rivers?

Keep digging No Personalities Refused.

Anonymous said...

Haven't had much of any eartime with this Ari Drainpipe character, but sheesh is there some sort of secret incubation chamber in the basement of Studio A that pod-hatches all these auditory neutered she-males for on-air consumption? (personal pet peeve is that Jim Zarolie (sp?))

Anonymous said...

I couldn't reach the off button quick enough with Joan Rivers. Pretty people on magazines, boobs and . . . all the rest. GASP! Did people fawn over Amos and Andy as much as Rickles and Rivers? I wonder!