I'm ok with the General so far. The FBI scene tried to implicate that maybe it was an inside job somehow. Frankly it would be massively tough for a foreign power to hit the Capitol Building like that with such total destruction anyway. The security for the State of the Union is pretty ungodly, not to mention the basic security in the building itself. So the inside job aspect isn't so far fetched to me for a TV drama.
But the General is very reason why I don't want the family drama. The interworkings of what happens in the situation room after something like this is drama enough. I'm actually surprised that it was just the General being the gung ho guy. CIA and FBI didn't seem to have a voice at the table, no one from National Security seemed to be there. And the whole point of the drama of the moment is that no one really does know who is in charge in the heat of the moment.
But I know I'm the nerd in this potential group that would get a kick out of things like simply the manner in which he rebuilds the government. The Office of the President has the power to run the country for awhile without Congress if necessary. With an attack like that on the homefront, there is no constitutional block to declaring martial law immediately, suspending habeas corpus and putting the country in a state of war by insurrection. In that President 24 can pretty much do whatever he wants. Mobilize the full military on the homefront, federalize the national guard, and use the military to run the country for a time.
But from there, what is the next step? I would assume the first thing he has to do is suspend trading the next day. The problem is that the SEC has to do that, and we have to assume that the commissioners were in the Capitol. If a majority of them are still alive, he would need to tell them to do it before the floors open. AT the same time he would need to call the German Chancellor, Prime Minister of Britain, Japan and France and beg them to do the same if they don't do it on their own. If there aren't any commissioners, he could argue it's a war measure and do it himself, and I doubt anyone would fight him too much, but that would have to happen.
But where do you go from there. He can't operate in a vacuum indefinately and there needs to be a Congress. I would think that the easiest thing to do is get all 50 governors to immediately appoint 2 temporary Senators and seat a new Senate. That can be done in about a week. Once the Senate is seated, he would need to nominate an entire new Cabinet, especially a Secretary of Treasury and Seretary of Defense. Whoever is the highest ranking officer in the Attorney General's office would take temporary hold of that job. He could let the highest living member of Interior, Commerce and those types of agenies just get bumped up for the time being to focus on the big cabinet posts.
From there, every state would have to hold special elections for the House. Which would be a cluster. I doubt he focuses on the Supreme Court at all anytime soon and he shouldn't. The most important government arms after this crisis would be the top 3 cabinet spots and a full Senate. I would think.
And all of that is the interesting thing to me. None of it gets to other things that would have to be done like calling on NATO to active all military personnel in the world, requiring the UN to formally vote on measures to ensure as much stability in the world as possible until the US is running smooth again, and things like that. All of that is like 3 seasons worth of drama. I don't need angst teen drug dealer calling his dudes from the east wing looking for a score.