January 14, 2007, - 12:55 pm
More “24” BS
By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
I’ve already written about the multiple “hints” that this season’s “24” will be more PC than ever, here (multiple links) and here.
Well, the MPAC/CAIR crowd really got to “24” producers because it looks like American Muslims (and even “former” terrorists) will be portrayed as terror-fighting superheroes, beginning tonight.
From “US Weekly’s” review:
Helping him [Jack Bauer] chase the bad guys: . . . An Arab militant (Alexander Siddig) who has learned the error of his ways.
Uh-huh. Like there are any of those helping Homeland Security, in real-life. Aside from the fact that there are few Arab terrorists who have “learned the error of [their] ways,” you don’t exactly see the DHS folks recruiting Walid Shoebat or Tawfik Hamid. Nope, they’re too busy brown-nosing CAIR/MPAC/ADC and other pan-Islamist, pro-terrorist organizations.
It’s interesting they chose actor Siddig, since, as I’ve written on this site, his real name is Siddig El-Fadil, and he is the real-life nephew of the Islamist former Prime Minister of Sudan, under whom mass-murder, rape, and torture of Black Christians in the Sudanese South went on, en masse. From my August 16, 2005 post about Siddig, who also co-starred in the pan-Islamist propaganda film, “Kingdom of Heaven“:
Siddig’s real name is Siddig El Fadil, and he has ties to the terror-sponsor government of Sudan (on the State Department Terrorist List). Siddig’s uncle, Sadiq Al-Mahdi, is a former Sudan Prime Minister, who helped oversee the wholesale Muslim torturous slaughter of Sudan’s Black Christians. Al-Mahdi is president of the Sudan’s Islamist Umma party and Imam of Sudan’s extremist Al-Ansar religious group. These groups made Bin Laden a welcome resident of the Sudan, from which he planned the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Siddig not only won’t denounce his terrorist uncle, he’s proud of him and put him in his Hollywood bio.
I get it–in real-life, the well-connected nephew of a terrorist-state leader, but on TV, we get to see the sanitized version–an Islamic terrorist who saw the error of his ways and is now helping fight terrorists. Talk about whitewashing.
More from US Weekly:
Indeed, judging by the first hours, 24 seems to be sagging a bit. The main plot is a retread, story lines involving ethnic profiling and a Muslim family are ham-fisted.
Yes, we are the evil profilers of innocent Muslims who love America, hate terrorism, and would never ever protest in favor of Hezbollah and against America. Never.
Then, there’s this from yesterday’s Detroit Newsistan. There are three characters who don’t exactly behave the way their real-life counterparts do:
Walid Al-Rezani: The articulate-but-combative head of a Muslim association who is working with CTU to bring down terrorists.
The head of CAIR, MPAC, or ADC working with Homeland Security to take down Islamic terrorists?! Excuse me while I try to stop laughing. The phony role is played by actor Harry Lennix (who-whaddya know?–resembles new Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison; coincidence?).
Nadia Yassir: CTU analyst helping to translate and disseminate information.
After the myriad of news stories we’ve had (including by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball in Newsweek) over the last 5.5 years about Arab and Muslim translators lying and deliberately not translating documents accurately for the government, I doubt the Yassir character will be true to life. Actress Marisol Nichols plays this phony persona.
But Sibel Edmonds, herself a non-religious Muslim translator with the FBI, could tell you a thing or two about what really goes on–and what happened to her when she complained (she was fired). She was the rare patriotic translator among a lot of traitors. They kept their jobs; she did not.
If both Al-Rezani and Yassir turn out to be traitorous liars on a taqiyyah (deception of infidels) gig–and don’t hold your breath for that to happen–then I’ll revise my review.
And last, but not least, the evil, militant Homeland Security employee who wants to surveil America’s Muslims (who is that guy? and why don’t we really have any at DHS?):
Tom Lennox: A slimy White House advisor and villainous foil.
Of course, the guy who wants to enforce the law, have a real Homeland Security (as opposed to the limp, do-nothing agency we have in real life), and investigate the extremist Muslims who dominate American life–Of course, that guy would be the “slimy . . . villainous foil.”
Remember, as I wrote previously, executive producer and star, Kiefer Sutherland said that, this season, the show will
take a strong political point of view. It’s a major point in a way the show’s never taken before.
Add to that, that this week, he told PBS’ (a/k/a “Palestinian Broadcasting System”) Charlie Rose:
Me–I see things from a left perspective. So, I’m always amazed when it’s [“24” is] galvanized by someone on the right.
“PC 24” begins tonight.
**** UPDATE: “24” executive producer Howard Gordon tells Detroit Free Press TV critic Mike Duffy a/k/a “Captain Video” that this season is all about focusing on the civil rights of Muslims:
The new President Palmer is being counseled to round up and detain Muslim Americans.
The chief proponent of that controversial tactic is Thomas Lennox (Peter MacNicol, “Ally McBeal”), a conservative senior adviser who one character in the show says “treats the Constitution like a list of suggestions.”
So in addition to delivering a gangbusters contemporary thriller, executive producer Gordon aims to focus even more this season on such hot-button, post-9/11 topical issues as torture, ethnic profiling and the erosion of civil rights.
“All the terrible byproducts that come from a desperate population is what we try to convey,” notes Gordon.
Of course, in addition to being the scarred victim of torture, Jack Bauer has often been the one delivering agonizing pain in an attempt to extract vital information.
“Sometimes in the rare ticking time bomb context of ’24’… some sort of coercive interrogation is sometimes called for,” explains Gordon. “That said, Jack pays a terrible price. We see the cumulative wear on his soul, and never more than this season.”
Wearing on his soul? If we didn’t have people who used coercive and tricky means to interrogate terrorists, our souls wouldn’t just be worn. They’d be all we had left, since our physical bodies would long ago have been attacked by the enemy.
Enough of this pyschobabble “wear on his soul” gobbledygook. What’s next–Jack Bauer goes to the salon for hair-frosting, manicure, and “guy-liner“?
Tags: actor, actress, ADC, Advisor, Alexander Siddig, America, analyst, articulate-but-combative head, bin Laden, Captain, Captain Video, Charlie Rose, congressman, CTU, CTU analyst, David Lunde, Debbie Schlussel, Department of State, Detroit Free Press, East Africa, executive producer, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Harry Lennix, head, Hizballah, Howard Gordon, Islamist Umma, Jack Bauer, Keith Ellison, Kiefer Sutherland, Kingdom of Heaven, Marisol Nichols, Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff, Mike Duffy, Muslim association, Nadia Yassir, Newsweek, pain, Palmer, Peter MacNicol, President, Prime Minister, rare patriotic translator, Sadiq Al-Mahdi, senior adviser, Sibel Edmonds, Siddig, Sudan, Sudan's Islamist Umma party, Tawfik Hamid, terrorist-state leader, Thomas Lennox, Tom Lennox, translator, United States, US Weekly, Walid Al-Rezani, Walid Shoebat, White House
What a huge disappointment, Debbie. My wife and I really enjoy the 24 franchise. We also used to watch Law & Order — until the leftwing story lines became too obnoxiously predictable. If what you say about 24 this season is true, I probably won’t bother with it for too many episodes. Gaddamn Hollywood ruins everything.
RepublicanPatriot on January 14, 2007 at 1:45 pm