TVSquad

A Canadian online journal, The Tyee, has likened the controversy over the impact of 24's fictional portrayal of torture on real-life military interrogators to Dan Quayle's condemnation of the impact of Murphy Brown's single motherhood on real-life women.

While making sport of the invitation extended to Kiefer Sutherland, who plays 24's torturer-in-chief, to speak to West Point cadets to tell them that torture is ineffective and wrong, The Tyee article added that when it comes to politics and 24, viewers see what they want to see.

"Jack is one of those outsiders who [is] above society's rules because he has a superior moral compass and always does the right thing -- and every American likes to believe this is his or her own story," writer Shannon Rupp said.

Several web sites are reporting that 24's Kiefer Sutherland has agreed to give a speech about the evils of torture to West Point cadets.

According to a story from Hollywood.com, Sutherland accepted the invitation to speak after some military experts publicly expressed concerns that graphic torture scenes on 24 were having an adverse effect on interrogators in the field.

A general was quoted in the Hollywood.com story as having asked the show's producers to change their story lines: "They should do a show where torture backfires. The kids see it [torture on TV] and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?'"

Wonder if Sutherland will bring a power drill as a torture "don't."

Creators of 24 met late last year with human rights advocates, the dean of West Point's military academy and experienced interrogators to discuss torture and how the torture scenes on 24 affect how people are questioned by authorities in real life, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The panel of torture experts wanted to persuade 24 writers to "show torture subjects taking weeks or months to break, spitting out false or unreliable intelligence, and even dying. As they do in the real world," the article said.