Bauer Power?

Fox news just referred to Jack Bauer from 24 as “America’s hardest working secret agent.”

I’m having trouble with that, because from what I can see, Bauer is like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny—he only works one day a year. Actually, it’s less than that—the series works on a time lapse, so we jump periodically, each season taking a break of several years. Jack Bauer is more like the Olympics, coming once every four years, sweating like crazy for a day, and then going back into hibernation.

I figure secret agents who pull a regular 9-5 yearly work just as hard as Bauer, if not harder. Granted, they may not have to pull as many all-nighters, but in a year they’re going to pull over two thousand hours. Four years, that’s eight thousand hours. I don’t care how much Bauer does in twenty four hours; there is no way that is going to equal eight thousand hours in normal service.

Then again, in the line of duty and over the course of five seasons Bauer has:

Hacked off a friend’s arm, shot a suspect’s wife in the leg, killed countless agents and civilians, got addicted to heroin, died (twice), lost his wife (permanently), lost his daughter (once because she was kidnapped, currently because she is pissed he faked his death)…

I’m torn. Is Bauer TV’s hardest working secret agent?