Jack Bauer of '24,' The Interrogator's Marquee de Sade?

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of watching "24," and it is a pleasure if you have a strong stomach, here's a bit of background: The Emmy-winning show depicts the amazing adventures of agent Jack Bauer, who specializes in stopping terrorists from blowing up America. Nearly every week, terrorists torture Jack, or Jack tortures terrorists, or both. In one episode, the president orders a Secret Service agent to torture his national security adviser, whom he suspects of treason.

The show, as Gordon tells Mayer, consists largely of "improvisations in sadism." Not surprisingly, "24" is very popular in the Bush administration.

Last March, Rush Limbaugh hosted a dinner for "24's" executive producer, Joel Surnow, and invited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, who works at the conservative Heritage Foundation. (Wouldn't it have been fun to be a fly on that wall?) Inspired by the dinner, Virginia Thomas organized a full-blown Heritage symposium with the wonderful title " '24' and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?" Michael Chertoff, the real-life homeland security secretary, showed up to praise the show, saying, "Frankly, it reflects real life."

After the symposium, Surnow and other "24" honchos went to the White House to dine with Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Lynne Cheney and Mary Cheney.

"People in the administration love the series," says Surnow, who described himself to Mayer as a "right-wing nut job."

He was joking, sort of, but he does hang out in what might be called the "right-wing nut job community." He's pals with the twin blond bomb throwers of the right -- Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Coulter and Surnow have discussed collaborating on what Surnow describes as "a movie that depicted Joe McCarthy as an American hero." And Ingraham invited Surnow on her radio show and then informed the world that while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, "it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better."

Satire? Who needs satire?

As for Limbaugh, Mayer asks him about "24's" treatment of torture and he replies, "It's just a television show! Get a grip."

Good advice. Let's hope Gen. Finnegan and his cadets heed it.

Meanwhile, when Rush Limbaugh becomes the voice of sweet reason, you know the world is getting very weird indeed.

Happy Ending

Mark Bowden knows how to tell a good story.

In "Black Hawk Down," he told the story of U.S. troops losing a street fight in Somalia. In "Guests of the Ayatollah," he told the story of the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran. Now, Bowden has written a wonderful piece called "Jihadists in Paradise," published in the March issue of the Atlantic. It's a long, compelling account of a success in the war on terrorism -- the tracking and killing of a band of Islamist guerrillas in the Philippines.

On May 27, 2001, the guerrillas kidnapped 20 people, including three Americans, at a beach resort and marched them into a dense jungle. The group's leader, a thug who called himself Abu Sabaya, used his cellphone to call radio stations to brag and demand ransom. But this was before 9/11 and the U.S. government didn't pay much attention. After 9/11, the Americans took notice and sent a CIA agent to help a tenacious Filipino marine officer to nail Sabaya.

I don't want to spoil the dramatic story but it's worth noting that the good guys win without torturing anybody. In the real world, good old-fashioned police work does the trick without any sadistic heroics from Jack Bauer.

The Two-Piece Band

The 2007 edition of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue has arrived. Its theme is music and it features the "guitar-pick bikini," which is a bikini made of guitar picks, and not that many of them.