Flash!!

WASHINGTON -- Jack Bauer, the fictional television character, in an appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, defended the necessity of torture to success in the war on terror groups, even as the Bush administration moved to pardon him and quash his testimony.

Bauer was disarmingly candid with the committee. When the Chair, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), opened the proceedings by lambasting Bauer's contempt for the rule of law, Bauer responded, "All that is true, Congressman. I violated the DTA, the MCA, the Torture statutes, the Convention Against Torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and the Mann Act [...]

"In a single 24-hour period, I killed seven men, one woman, and a dog; kidnapped 5 other people; shaved, electrocuted, interrogated and released 12 other people. During this period I revealed an attempt to stage a military coup in Hawaii; I assassinated the Vice President; I saved the President and the Speaker of the House; I hijacked a Capitol tour bus, and found the remains of the bomb that brought down Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) quickly countered, "You are clearly a man who believes himself to be above the laws that govern human relationships." Bauer's reply: "That's not all, sir. I am also beyond the laws that govern physics." To a stunned audience, Bauer simply opined, "I can bend time with my mind."

The administration had initially sought to restrict the scope of Bauer's testimony, then denied access to him as a matter of executive privilege, until Waxman and committee Democrats were compelled to subpoena him. Yesterday, the administration moved to distance itself from Bauer. "This is a Tom-and-Jerry hearing. Jack Bauer was a low-level freelance operator requesting limited access to enhanced techniques, who's now selling his story to FOX for millions of dollars."

Shortly after the hearing, Bauer was indicted at the International Criminal Tribunal for Broadcast Programming after judges at the Hague viewed the 5-disc first season of 24. "No international body claiming to govern the world's fantasies would dare stand idly by while men such as Herr Bauer wreck havoc on our institutions," said a three-member panel of justices.

A full presidential pardon is expected to be issued later today. Such a measure would prove conclusively that Jack Bauer exists, though it would obscure just what exactly his role was in crafting administration interrogation policy.

The question of Bauer's culpability in defining, enacting and -- as his critics point out -- hyperextending that policy, from Guantanamo to Bagram, may be moot. Yesterday evening, Bauer was sprayed with the nerve agent, sarin, and was abducted by rogue elements of the Chinese military. His precise whereabouts are unknown.