Last year, more than 12 million people watched as Jack Bauer faked his own death to avoid being handed over to the Chinese on murder charges stemming from an “incident” at the Chinese embassy. The fact that Jack violated about 2 dozen treaties by breaking into the consulate, kidnapping a Chinese national, causing the death of the ambassador, while not signing the guest book only served to highlight the reasons we love Jack Bauer so much and why we shamelessly root for his success.

By all accounts, critics are raving about this year’s installment of murder, mayhem, and angst as Jack and the folks at the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) try and forestall the evil designs of evil men. And if the past is any indication, we will have absolutely no problem identifying who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy.

That’s the attraction of the show, of course. No mealy mouthed platitudes about trying to “understand” the terrorists or writers trying to ply the audience with comforting bromides about “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” These are inhuman monsters.

Even last year’s Ozzie and Harriet terrorist family, the Araz clan, was as dysfunctional and evil a group as one could imagine. Stone cold killers who didn’t bat an eye in helping to carry out a plot that could have meant the death of tens of thousands of innocent Americans, there was very little in the Araz family to redeem them. Even the hormone infused teenager Behruzz was prepared to kill his girlfriend to prevent their little cell from being exposed. And of course, Jack’s most cunning nemesis to date, the fanatical Marwan, proved to be the ultimate Jihadist. Not only did Marwan seek to destroy the United States, but his lack of concern at the millions of people who would have been killed if his plans had succeeded mirrored the cockeyed worldview inhabited by Osama Bin Laden and the rest of his merry band of beheaders.

For this reason, the violence done to the terrorists by Jack and his crew seems necessary and even correct. No handwringing about civil liberties or constitutional rights for the terrorists where Jack is concerned. To Jack, the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. This kind of black and white view of the conflict with al Qaeda has escaped most liberals who instead of seeing an implacable foe bent on destroying us and only worthy of being planted six feet under see a poor, misbegotten criminal who is motivated to do bad things because, after all, didn’t we do bad things to them?

It’s that kind of reasoning which will get us all killed and is the primary reason liberals will continue to lose elections as long as al Qaeda is a threat. The American people want Jack Bauer protecting them not the ACLU and Amnesty International.

A few weeks ago, MSNBC’s Craig Crawford wrote a blurb on his blog about how careless Jack Bauer is with the constitution and by the way, isn’t that just like President Bush? After all, Bush is just a stupid goober chewing, red state mouth breather who sees the war in black and white instead of the nuanced shades of gray that us smart folk look at things. I answered Mrs. Crawford thusly:

In one respect, Crawford is correct in his comparison of Jack with Bush; they are able to clearly distinguish between good and evil, between who is right in this war and who is wrong. Crawford and his ilk can’t. This makes Crawford not only someone to be laughed at but someone to be feared as well. For if we ever have a government headed by a President who sees gray where there is clearly black and white, the chances of enjoying both liberty and security in the United States will disappear as surely as Jack Bauer will end up stretching the Constitution to its breaking point this season in order to protect us from disaster.

To be fair, Jack doesn’t just stretch the Constitution, he shatters it into a million pieces. In last year’s first episode, while watching the interrogation at CTU headquarters of a particularly unresponsive terrorist, Jack couldn’t stand it any longer and burst into the interrogation room, shot the terrorist in the kneecap, and began to fire questions at the thug who, to no one’s surprise, suddenly became much more cooperative.

That’s our Jack. The Craig Crawford’s of the world can shake their heads and prattle on about the terrorist’s rights. Jack simply gets the job done. And considering what was in store for the US that day - nuke plant meltdowns and a nuclear armed missile headed for Los Angeles - I would hazard a guess and say that the overwhelming majority of Americans approved of Jack’s tactics despite not following the Constitutional niceties.

As for the show itself, all of the reviews I’ve read say it is absolutely essential that you not miss the first 10 minutes of the show on Sunday night. No speculation here but this site started a “Dead Pool” on who is going to get whacked first. My own guess is Jack’s beloved daughter Kim (Elisa Cuthbert) will get offed if only as poetic justice for her execrable performance as a porn star in The Girl Next Door. Besides, what better way to get Jack motivated for the next 24 hours?

As if Jack needed any motivation.

As I did last year, I will be analyzing the show on the morning following the previous night’s episode. And back by popular demand will be my “Body Count” feature where I’ll keep track of Jack’s grisly totals as well as totals for the show. We’ll also have some fun speculating about future episodes as well as pointing out inconsistencies in the plot. All in all, make sure you drop by and catch up with all the latest. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.