Hey Folks? No Tooth Fairy Either. Sorry.

OK, we admit it. We like to watch the tee vee as much as the next guy, and yes we do enjoy an adult beverage or two when we watch, causing us to lose the thread of the narrative from time to time, but even in our most...erm...distracted state we know that 24 is...how to break this gently...made up. Fiction. Not a news show. The result of script writers and rehearsals. A filler between commercials. Are you getting the thread here?

Apparently not.

Joel Surnow Fox TV 24's, self-professed "right-wing nut job", co-creator and executive said, “We’ve had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, ‘You don’t realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.’"

Now look people, your first clue that this is a made up show should have been that it's on Fox. Heck, even their news is made up over there.

U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind 24. Finnegan…was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country. [They] had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect.

Ya think? Oh, and by the way. That quote from Abraham Lincoln? He never said it. Details details details.

In General Finnegan's view, the show promoted "unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers.”

No way. OK, way.

Of the show, Surnow says, “Our only politics are that terrorists are bad.” But others point out that “many prominent conservatives speak of 24 as if it were real.”

OK, we think we see the problem now.

Christopher Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

Now look, raging nutcases who can't tell the difference between reality and their own fevered dreams of world domination aside, we all just need to take a minute here and get ourselves together. Why fight over fictional torturers when we've got real torturers out there? And better, they're available for kid's parties. Gives a whole new meaning to pin the tail on the donkey.