I’ve commented many times about how difficult it is at times to suspend belief this year and accept some of the premises the show presents us. But when there is an absolutely spot on take regarding the reality of what happens in the cesspool that is Washington, D.C., it should be highlighted and given the attention it deserves.

The Jihad being carried out against Bill Buchanan for signing off on the release of Fayed two years previously, before he was a wanted man and when the terrorist was picked up in an immigration sweep, painfully calls to mind the aftermath of 9/11 and how the “gotchya” culture that is endemic inside the beltway helped disunite the country and sowed the seeds of suspicion against the Bush Administration.

You may recall that the Bushies resisted the formation of the 9/11 Commission. As it turned out, they had good reasons to do so. After promising a “bi-partisan” investigation of the event that would leave politics aside and not “assign blame” for the tragedy, what happened? The Democrats, the press, and most of official Washington scrambled to present evidence that the Bush Administration was solely to blame for the tragedy. Lost down the memory hole were the preceding 8 years of inaction and miscalculation regarding the nature of the threat from al-Qaeda not to mention a philosophy of fighting terrorism that treated the entire issue as a law enforcement matter. And as far as domestic security, the Clinton Justice Department set up road block after road block that would have allowed the FBI to compare notes with the CIA and other foreign intelligence sources not to mention allowing airline security to become a bad joke.

In fact, it really makes one wonder about former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and his escapades at the National Archives where he stole documents and destroyed evidence by his own admission. To this day, it is unclear exactly what Mr. Berger did and what kind of damage he did to the historical record. We don’t know how many or which documents he absconded with nor do we have a clue if he altered any reports or the extent of his whitewashing the Clinton record on terrorism.

The fact is, Mr. Berger carried out his black bag operation at the Archives in preparation for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. He knew full well that the Commission’s true purpose was scalp hunting – that regardless of what the Commission was saying to themselves or the public, the press and Democrats took every bit of negative information about the Bush Administration’s failures on 9/11 (and there were plenty) and turned them into a club to beat the President over the head. Meanwhile, the real failures of the Clinton Administration (and previous Presidents Bush and Reagan as well) were given short shrift in the media. Any attempt by the Bushies to defend themselves were seen as a “cover-up” or white washing their actions leading up to that day.

This is America at the start of the 21st century. The facts don’t matter. All that is important is to “blame” someone. Reading the 9/11 Commission Report, in its entirety, one is struck by the way our country went through the 1990’s sleepwalking toward disaster. There were a few public servants – Richard Clark at the White House and John O’Neil at the FBI who knew what al-Qaeda was and the threat they posed to our country. But by and large, Presidents, the intelligence agencies, the State Department, and all the organs of government who should have known better, didn’t. And that’s why responsibility for the attack on 9/11 should be seen as a failure shared by all of us – what the Commission called “a failure in imagination” regarding what al-Qaeda could do.

But don’t try and tell the Democrats this. When ABC’s The Path to 9/11 was going to air and even the mildest of criticisms of the Clinton Administration was implied, the left went ballistic and called for the show to be cancelled. They had worked 5 years to develop a narrative of what happened and the last thing they wanted was any kind of truth to intrude on their “Blame Bush” party. They didn’t want the image of people jumping out of 100 story windows to be the story from that day but rather one of the President sitting in a classroom in Florida reading from a Children’s book. And by and large, they have been successful.

Bill Buchanan was sacrificed on the altar of necessity because the culture in Washington as it exists today demands a scapegoat for tragedy. The question we should all be asking ourselves is can’t we do any better than this? When the next terrorist attack occurs – and we all know that it will happen, it’s just a question of when – what will be the reaction of our political elites in Washington? For the answer, we need look no further than the instructive fate of Bill Buchanan and how good people can get caught up in “The Blame Game” and ground to dust as a result.

SUMMARY

After getting the boot from the car by Jack, Little Ricky tries to flag down another vehicle to take up the pursuit. For some reason, no one seems to want to stop their car at midnight along a dark road with a guy dressed all in black waving like a crazy man in the middle of the street. One luckless civilian does indeed stop and is dragged out of his car for his trouble. Good thing it just happened to be another black SUV and not some POS Gremlin or Saturn.

Using the unfortunate man’s cell phone (can you imagine the roaming charges?) Doyle calls CTU with the bad news that he’s lost Jack. Morris, keeping on eye on the circuit board’s position via the tracking device, vectors Little Ricky toward Jack’s position and the chase is on.

Bill tells the staff that Jack has “gone rogue” and that their top priority is now to apprehend him before he can hand the board to the Chinese. Given the fact that Jack has “gone rogue” a gazillion times in the history of the series, the proper question might be to ask Bill why he doesn’t announce when Jack is being a team player instead of when he’s off the CTU reservation. Bill also tells Chloe that her exile is over and she is back on the team because “I need my best people working for Jack.” Seeing as how it is apparent that CTU will do just about anything – including taking Jack out – in order to keep the Chinese from getting the board, that statement just doesn’t ring true – unless they are going to help Jack facilitate his own suicide.

This may be true, but first Jack has to lose his pursuers. He pulls up underneath a forest of high tension wires where all that electromagnetic energy not only masks the tracking signal from Morris and prying eyes at CTU but will also probably give Jack brain cancer – if you can believe the alarmists who think that we’d be better off living in the horse, buggy, and Whale oil era. Bauer loses the tracking device and races off for his rendezvous with Cheng and the Chinese who are holding Audrey.

An interesting aside – the White House press secretary announces that the Veep has taken over and will make a speech to the nation at 9:00 AM eastern. Since the show is due to end at 6:00 AM Pacific time (9:00 AM Eastern) one wonders if Daniels will indeed be making that speech or whether some misfortune of his own doing will befall him. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Old Noah, the Veep has a heart to heart with Tom and tries to ascertain whether Lennox will use the recording of him plotting perjury as a weapon to hang over his head. Inexplicably, Tom promises not to use the damning evidence.

I don’t know about you, but if I had information in my possession that could bring down the most powerful man in the world at any time, I doubt seriously that I would foreswear using it. But Tom acts the good little soldier and swears that he’ll keep the info under wraps.

In a phonecon with Cheng, Jack informs the Chinese security official that it’s his ballgame now since CTU is after him and only he can escape their net of satellites and cameras. He says that he will meet Cheng at an old abandoned motel to make the exchange.

Doyle pulls up to where Jack ditched the tracking device and is able to divine which way Bauer headed. His logic is impeccable but one wonders how he was able to determine the exact place that Jack got rid of the tracking device and how he could tell the direction Jack took off toward. Maybe he’s part bloodhound.

Back at CTU, Morris and Chloe have a little sparring match that proves how far the show has fallen. Instead of Morris’s witty bantering and Chloe’s pouting responses, we have them both trading mean spirited barbs, ending up with Chloe telling him that one of the ways he can change his behavior is “Don’t arm nuclear bombs for terrorists.” While she immediately regrets saying it, I have to think that Chloe in the past would never have been so deliberately hurtful toward Morris. It just didn’t ring true. Morris sulks away – for good reason.

Back at the White House, Karen is informed of a visitor from the Department of Justice. Peter Hock has been interrogating Tom’s former aide Reid Hollock, who is desperate to avoid the death penalty for his role in the assassination attempt on the President. Reid gives Hock the info that had Karen resigning a few hours ago – the fact that Bill Buchanan released Fayed two years ago in Seattle as a result of an immigration sweep. The fact that there was no follow up was normal since Fayed was a nobody at the time. But Hock tells Karen the long knives are out and that blame will be assessed for Bill not having the ability to know the future. He is going down and it’s best that Karen not go down with him.

At CTU, the gang was able to intercept Jack’s call to Cheng thanks to the fact that he was using one of the cell phone CTU collected from the terrorists. While the call is encrypted, the geeks are able to ascertain that Jack was headed down Highway 305 – just where Little Ricky thought. They narrow down the search to an unincorporated area.

Jack arrives at the motel and starts preparing for Cheng’s arrival. We see him setting the charge that will obliterate the room, the board, and presumably Mr. Cheng and yours truly, Jack Bauer. Jack makes an affecting call to Bill’s answering machine telling him that he will indeed commit suicide rather than allow the board to fall into Chinese hands. He asks Bill to “take care of Audrey” and tells him that he’s been a good friend.

These moments where Jack actually seems human have been missing the last few weeks. Early on when Jack was having trouble getting back into the swing of torturing and killing people, it made for interesting television to see him torn. But that part of Jack has dropped by the wayside the last several hours and all we’ve seen is the Jack obsessed with duty or the Jack driven to get the job done at all costs. Since I believe the popularity of the character depends a great deal on his ultimate humanity, it was good to see the writers give Jack a little slice of reality to go with the mayhem.

Back at the White House, Karen has a heart to heart with her new best friend Tom Lennox. Always the realist, Lennox tells Karen that she has no choice but to feed Bill to the waiting sharks in the press and punditry. It just won’t do for someone close to the President to be seen having anything to do with Fayed’s release. Reluctantly, she appears to agree.

The blow up between Morris and Chloe has serious repercussions when Morris sees Bill and asks to be transferred away from Chloe. Bill agrees and promises him another spot. This proves to be problematic when Bill calls Karen and finds out that his loving wife is giving him the ax. Shocked, Buchanan claims he didn’t do anything wrong. Immaterial says Karen since it’s either you or me and better it be you because of my closeness to the President. Bill hangs up on her and one wonders about how solid that marriage is at the moment.

So Bill rides temporarily off into the sunset, first informing Nadia that she’s the boss until Division sends someone over. As Bill is escorted off the premises by white shirted security guards (as opposed to the red shirted idiots who have allowed so many lapses in security through the years that they have become a running joke), Nadia tells the gang that nothing has changed, that they still must get Jack before the board changes hands.

Toward that end, Little Ricky is in hot pursuit of Jack and the board when he spots the telltale black SUV of Jack’s parked off road near the motel. Scoping the place out, Ricky has arrived just in time to see Cheng’s stretch limo pull into the abandoned parking lot. When he sees Audrey emerge, he knows the switch is about to take place and begs for backup. Nadia tells him that it’s still minutes away, that he must do something to prevent the exchange.

Cheng walks into the darkened room and demands the chip. Jack demands that he see Audrey. When the love of his life walks into the room looking for all the world like a scared little girl, Jack melts. He removes her gag and has a tender moment with her, stroking her face and telling her everything is going to be alright. Again, Cheng demands the board. Jack informs him that Audrey is to be let go and out of sniper range before he hands it over. He whispers to Audrey that she should go out the door and walk toward a bridge where she will find a cab that will take her to CTU.

Desperate now as Audrey walks out the door, Doyle once again inquires about back up only to be told it won’t be there in time. So as Jack, seeing that Audrey is free and almost to the bridge, tosses the board to Cheng and puts his hand on the detonator that will mean his certain death, Little Ricky takes matters into his own hands and offs one of the sharpshooters taking aim at Audrey.

Rather than a huge explosion, Jack is forced to defend himself. He takes out one Chinese security guy but the other one gives our hero a burst of automatic fire right in the chest. Jack goes down but is protected by his vest. Just then, CTU TAC shows up and all hell breaks loose. A vicious firefight erupts as TAC members surround Audrey and take her into custody while Cheng and some of his men bolt out the back way and get into three separate Hummers, driving off into the night into the foothills of the mountains. CTU has Audrey but Cheng has the circuit board. The Chinese shoot down a trailing helicopter and suddenly, CTU is blind with no coverage of the area. We watch helplessly as the Chinese split up, the Hummers going in three different directions.

Jack meanwhile takes down the Chinese security guy who shot him only to be confronted by a TAC team member who sprays the inside of the room with gunfire. Lucky not to be hit, Jack surrenders and demands to see the CTU agent in charge. Jack is mad that Little Ricky didn’t trust him to kill himself. He’s also upset that Cheng was able to slip through their fingers. Now they have no leads about Cheng’s destination or whereabouts, Jack is being led away in handcuffs, and Jack has precious few friends in high places who can help him get out of this one.

And Audrey? Led back into the room, Jack searches her face only to discover to his horror that she doesn’t recognize him, that she is exhibiting all the symptoms of someone who is totally traumatized. In short, she’s a nut case. And Jack can’t do a thing to help her.

BODY COUNT

A confused action due to the darkness and the quick cut technique of the editors. Unknown: The fate of the CTU helicopter crew who took a heavy hit from a shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile and was going down. But Jack managed to drop two Chinese, adding to his total:

Jack takes out one Chinese only to get flattened by the other.
CTU TAC accounts for two Chinese gunmen.
Jack offs the second Chinese in the room, although it took him two rounds to do it (he must have been stunned by the bullets slamming into his flak jacket).

TOTAL:

JACK: 25

SHOW: 407