In this season’s 24, there are two ongoing conflicts. The first is the international conflict: Terrorists aided and abetted by the Russians have five nuclear bombs they intend to detonate in the US. Two have gone off; three are still out there waiting for the immortal Jack Bauer to find and defuse before they devastate the US. This conflict is not the one that intrigues me.
The more interesting conflict is the internal philosophical conflict taking place between the Vice President and the President over the best way to handle the terrorists. The President wanted to co-opt the assistance of the Muslim community; the Vice President took a far more hard-line stance on the issue, insisting that all dissenters should be jailed and marshall law declared. TV being what it is, this conflict is taken to the extreme, with a fringe group of fervent hawks plotting to assassinate the President in order to install the Vice President in power so that the plan to secure the United States can be executed.
The interesting part of the conflict is the fervent belief in both camps that they are right and doing what’s best for the country. Of course, they’re also drunk with power (particularly the VP) and willing to go to any extreme to advance their agenda.
This is also the reality of our current Administration. I read through the documents released today by the Attorney General with regard to the firing of 8 US Attorneys, and they are truly disturbing. It’s clear that the plot to replace these 8 USA’s is hatched by mandate of the administration and carried out by fervent believers who truly believe they’re acting in the best interests of the country (at least, in some cases). But what they did is immoral at best, and likely illegal (though I’m not an attorney and can’t say for sure). Read the documents for yourself. Some of them read like 24; others like The West Wing (with a distinctly right-wing flavor).
After reading these documents and doing some other research on this and related abuses (such as the FBI’s violation of Patriot Act Guidelines), I am now convinced that impeachment proceedings should begin right now. No matter how fervent the believers are, we cannot have a rogue administration willing to break every law on the books in order to advance their agenda.
Related:
Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System
US Buildup in Iraq Getting Bigger (evidently the Administration didn’t tell us the full extent of the plan)
Frequent Errors in FBI’s Secret Records Requests (one might wonder if the word “error” is being too kind)
Firings Had Genesis in White House
Technorati Tags: 24, Bush administration, US Attorneys, impeachment
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