I really shouldn’t be surprised, but apparently Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can’t tell fact from fiction:
The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer [of the television show 24], arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said.Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.
“So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”
Via Gerry Canavan, who rightly points out that “[k]nowing the difference between escapist TV fantasy and real life ought to be a litmus test for being under 24-hour psychiatric care, much less being a supreme court justice.”