Breaking Down Bauer: Tackling the New Season of 24
Written by: Rob Van Winkle, CC2K Staff Writer
Sometimes in this world, a trend becomes clear almost immediately, like Harry Potter fever, or Britney Spears backlash. In such cases, we as a people know immediately where we stand, and can react accordingly. However, in less common cases, a trend can be just as apparent, and yet take far longer to seep into the public consciousness. Rarely if ever do good things come from this. People are caught unawares by what’s happening right under their noses, and history has shown us that, when taken by surprise (like getting your naval base at Pearl Harbor attacked, or getting heckled by some African American audience members in California), people tend to be at their worst.
Maybe it’s for this reason that I have only noticed this after six seasons of 24, but the time has come to do something about it. Namely…the presidents in this country do NOT know how to pick a running mate! Time and time again our national leaders in this show of shows have found themselves staring across the room at the man who helped get them elected, only to find that they are looking at someone who is incompetent at best, downright evil at worst. Sure, SOME people might dismiss this as merely bad writing, with the producers simply dipping time and again back into the same old well for ideas. However, FAR MORE likely is the scenario in which almost all our politicians are out to DESTORY AMERICA!
So, before we get to the solution, let’s recap the problem. The following are actual subplots of various seasons of 24:
- During a crisis in Season 2, the vice president and other members of the cabinet (including the president’s chief of staff) feel that David Palmer is not handling the crisis (I can’t remember what it was) correctly. A secret meeting is held, and using some Constitutional protocol, President Palmer is briefly stripped of his power.
- During Season 4, the evil terrorists successfully target and shoot down Air Force One, nearly killing the president (this is okay though, because we didn’t really like this president, as he was the guy who forced David Palmer to withdraw his name from the previous election, because of his ex-wife’s role in a death, due to…Jesus, never mind.) The president’s running mate, Charles Logan, assumes command, making it clear instantly that he is both ill-prepared for the office, and also extraordinarily incompetent.
- Last Season, we discovered that Charles Logan has retained the office of president, and apparently used it to mastermind the assassination of David Palmer, as well as smuggle nerve gas into the US for some convoluted plot to save the country. Making this even more ironic is the fact that, for weeks, everyone assumed it was his Vice-President who was behind everything.
- This year, President Wayne Palmer is facing a crisis at home, with an Arab separatist (along with a Russian General, of course) having detonated one nuclear bomb on US soil, and attempting to do so with several more. Members of his staff have urged the president to ratify a plan that will call for the detention and questioning of all Muslim people in our country, in order to make us all safer, but the president has stood alone in thinking that this tactic might be going a BIT too far. When members of the Chief of Staff’s staff attempt to kill Palmer (Wait…what?), they end up wounding him badly, while also killing the former terrorist with whom the president was trying to make peace. In steps the Vice-President, who makes the following bold steps:
- Re-writes the attack on the president, so that the former terrorist is seen as the one responsible.
- Enacts all of the proposals restricting the rights of Muslims.
- Promises the ambassador of “the country that Fayed is from” that if another attack succeeds, he will retaliate against this country, despite the assurances of the ambassador (and all documentary evidence supporting the ambassador’s claim) that the country has nothing to do with the attack.
- Once the latest attack is successfully averted, with only the bare minimum of casualties, our new acting president decides to move forward ANYWAY with his planned nuclear strike against the unnamed Arab nation.
- And, just to tie everything up in a neat bow, once Wayne Palmer regains consciousness long to abort this attack and once again take command of the country, the Vice President moves to have him impeached and removed from power.
Clearly, something has gone clearly wrong in whatever political science classes these particular candidates have been taking. But fear not fellas, I’m here to help.
MEMO TO ALL CURRENT AND FUTURE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ON 24
When our country was first formed, each voter was given two votes for president, under the stipulation that only one could be for an in-state candidate. This was done so each election would not end in a 13-way tie, or with the New York candidate winning every time. In this system, the overall winner became president, while the runner up became VP. Often, not only were these two men not of the same political party, but they actually hated each other’s guts (See: Adams, John and Jefferson, Thomas).
Luckily for all of you, this has not been our system for the past 200 years or so. Now, you are able to pick who you want to help you lead the country. So, now that it’s your choice…how do you choose?
In today’s world, there are only a very few reasons for a vice-presidential candidate to be chosen:
- He is from the South, and thus will help you relate to that demographic.
- He is from a key battleground state, and his name on the ticket will win it over.
- Your former president dad told you to.
Pick wisely, and FOR GOD’S SAKE, have a psychiatric evaluation done before you put him on your ticket!
Once you’re elected president, and he is now second in command, you have to make sure he’s busy, since idle minds plot presidential downfalls. It doesn’t matter what he does, because at the end of the day, the VP’s duties boil down to this:
- Make you look good by comparison.
So, to sum up, your ideal running mate is one who will help you win the election, one who won’t immediately try to have to killed or removed the second you two disagree, and one who can help deflect attention away from all the stupid shit you do.
Enough with picking Vice President’s who try to kill you. Instead, find one so loyal that he’ll try to kill a buddy while hunting, just to give you a breather from your own incompetence. Now THAT’s a running mate.