The Real Jack Bauers Are on the Battlefield
…and they’ve been sent there by chickenhawks.
Blogger Sarah Devon of Athens, Georgia has made a comment about Maureen Dowd’s latest column, Looking for a Democratic Tough Guy, or Girl.
If the Republican party is Jack Bauer, maybe Edwards is a stronger breed of Democrat, one that doesn’t really have a place in today’s pop culture. Maybe he’s a Robin Hood of sorts. Maybe that’s what Dowd wants to see. I know it’s what I want to see.
The GOP has a guy doing his darndest to play a Jack Bauer role. Of course, we all know that Bauer is a fictional character played by a (very good) actor who is a tough-guy beholden, with respect, to the power of those who command him. Kind of like Bush, pulled by the strings of those who read the newspapers for him - that is, if you take away the courage to face war and gunfire; if you take away Bauer’s extremely uncanny sense of intuition; and if you remove Bauer’s ability to tell the truth to those he serves; and if you rely on pop fiction.
If the show “24″ featured a Jack Bauer that hung around the office hiding AWOL under a desk while his comrades were being shot at, Maureen Dowd’s “brave-like-Bauer” simile might come closer to reality.
In recent polls, we see that the public clearly understands that the Jack Bauer they’ve been seeing on their TV screens gets different results than the bumbling Bauer wanna-bes in the Bush administration. The real Jack Bauers are the ones they irresponsibly stuck on the battlefield. You know their faces. They are the ones who are sitting ducks today in Iraq because of the idiotic missteps of the leader who would not listen to the voices that mattered.
I agree with Sarah - I want the real deal - and not an actor. We don’t need a scripted brave man/cave man. John Edwards isn’t a “Johny-get-angry.” He’s a passionate fellow with principles who, like most honorable characters and great leaders in literature, will not hide behind a mask of false bravado; will not lie or mislead; will call a duck a duck when everyone can see it’s a duck - (maybe even before others can even spot the duck); is respectable; trustworthy; standing strong in his convictions. Cheery, reverent, thrifty - maybe John Edwards is more like a Boy Scout leader than a ‘blam-blam’ Bauer. What’s wrong with that?
WE WANT A LEADER WHO IS…..
More Mr. Smith Goes to Washington than Ernest in the Army.
More Mr. Darcy than Mr. Ed.
More Viggo Mortenson from Lord of the Rings and less Sonny from “I, Robot”
More Jesus in the temple than Satan in the torture chamber.
January 20th, 2006 at 1:47 am
- maybe John Edwards is more like a Boy Scout leader than a ‘blam-blam’ Bauer. What’s wrong with that?
What’s wrong is that even a boy scout is too real for this reality tv sensibility —
adapted by a society in the death watch of the middle class American Dream.
Increasingly the fictional and the fantastic have become common interpretive modes in public discourse as well as popular culture: Bush on the flight deck, missing only the cape and superhero mask; Osama as the Evil One; the swiftboat revisionists; and the countless media collaborations with state propaganda. Its everywhere, from the Iraqi war projections, to the cost of Medicare; from the constant trumping of the “noble cause”of war, to Oprah’s endorsement of “emotional truth” over facts. Economic “recovery” is touted despite almost daily reports of job elimination — both reported usually in the very same outlet .
In popular media the level of simulated violence grows more extreme, seemingly in inverse relation to the deepening and increasingly hidden or forgotten horrors of our war of occupation.
We can’t handle the truth.
January 20th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Bush on the flight deck, missing only the cape and superhero mask; Osama as the Evil One..
Yes, when in reality, they are playing similar mind games with the people of their respective cultures in order to usurp undue power.
While media pundits like Chris Matthews spout off about how Michael Moore and Osama bin Laden are alike, which is so far off the mark that I wonder if he’s just not another lamb lost to the slaughter of democracy and truth that Bush propaganda has become….another victim of the forgotten horrors of which you speak.
Osama and George are excellent manipulators. They know how to keep the world a frightening and violent place for the poor sheep that actually believe that their political leaders will be their all-protective Daddy.
The best thing America could do is to end the charade in Iraq and concentrate on true justice, of which we lost sight when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney decided to forget that the rule of law ever existed. Bush and Cheney should both be impeached for their weakness in leadership and their unlawful, democracy-destroying behavior.
They should have never played by the rule of Osama. Apparently, though, it’s what they wanted.
Chris Matthews should be smart enough to realize that Bush and bin Laden are far more alike than Moore and bin Laden ever could be.