February 05, 2005

With the Super Bowl tomorrow, we got to thinking about the ultimate right-leaning blogger football team. Who would play what position? Who would coach? Who'd be in the front office? After much thought (and a couple of beers), we're proud to unveil the team.

The All Right Wing Blogger Team

On Defense:

Defensive End: Tom Alday from Aldaynet. We think we can channel Tom's natural aggression as the head of the Republican Attack Squad into making him a fine pass rusher and sack artist extraordinaire.

Nose Tackle: Rusty Shackleford of Mypetjawa. Rusty is on the front lines speaking out against Islamofascism, so the transition to the trenches as a nose tackle should be no problem.

Defensive Tackle: James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today. I think of defensive lineman as being a fairly repetitive position. Similarly, Taranto does the same thing every day and even includes a fair number of running items (who can forget "the haughty, French-looking Senator who, by the way, served in Vietnam"?) in every column.

Defense End: Like Mark Gastineau before her, Sondra K is a flamboyant character with the chops to stand up for herself and the rest of the team.

Right Linebacker: Michelle Malkin takes the spot. She covers a lot of ground, whether it is through her travels or through the variety of topics she's able write intelligently about. Plus, she's tough and aggressive and not afraid of players who are bigger than her (witness her battles with Chris Matthews).

Middle Linebacker: John Hawkins from Right Wing News is our choice for the "quarterback of the defense". John does a good job organizing and compiling the thoughts of fellow bloggers and we feel he could easily translate those skills to the field.

Left Linebacker: Yeah, somebody has to have the word "left" in his or her position. And frankly, we're even more afraid of Malkin than we are of Kevin Aylward from Wizbang so he gets it. Nevertheless, Kevin has shown admirable persistence in his various kerfuffles with members of the looney left. A linebacker needs to be able to pursue the offense and we think Kevin is certainly up to the task.

Strong Safety: We need someone capable of stopping the other sides’ best shots, regardless of whether it's a run or a pass. Matt Wretchard of Belmont Club fits the bill. When the opponent comes at him, Matt has the discipline and details to stop him in his tracks. Perfect.

Free Safety: Like players of old, we're tabbing Ann Althouse to play on both sides of the line. She's the Deion Sanders of the blogging. As a moderate, she's demonstrated sufficient flexibility to be effective on both offense and defense. Additionally, we believe this position gives her enough freedom to flourish and produce on the field.

Cornerback: At corner, we've chosen a couple of trash talkers. First, we have none other than Emperor Misha from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. You wouldn't expect the liberal likes of a T.O. or Randy Moss to be able to stand up to him, would you?

Cornerback:: At the other corner, we have Rachel Lucas from Blue-Eyed Infidel. For all of her size, Rachel is one tough cookie. Just imagine the smack down she'd put on a Michael Moore or some Hollywood liberal who opens their "pie hole". I'm thinking Rachel might get more than her fair share of pass interference penalties, but we'll take our chances.

On Offense:

Left Tackle: Once again, the whole "left" thing. In this case, Patterico will have to deal with it. We think it'll be no problem, because he's already constantly butting heads with the liberal media. Defensive linemen should be no problem after the L.A. Times.

Left Guard: LaShawn Barber is one of our guards. We were impressed by her ability to come to the aid of her fellow bloggers. If she can do that, we're confident she can protect the quarterback.

Center: Who but Glenn Reynolds could be the center? The Instapundit already is at the center of the blogosphere. But, we don't want to limit him. We'd also propose putting Glenn in at running back in some short yardage situations because there's gotta be a short post/short yardage correlation, right? I picture Glenn as something of a blogger's version of The Fridge, opening up a can of Instalanche on the opposition.

Right Guard: Kim du Toit takes one of our other positions on the offensive line. We need some tough characters on the line, and look at him, who's tougher or more intimidating than Kim? Johnny Cash thought that naming a boy Sue would make him "tough" -- well what do you think happened to Kim, a White African-American with a girl's first name and a French last name? As far as "tough" goes, this guy is Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka, and Brett Favre all rolled into one.

Right Tackle: Someone who might very well be tougher than Kim is our tackle Risawn. After months of dealing with liberals who couldn't get past seeing a chick with a gun, we trust that stopping loudmouth defensive ends should be no problem.

Tight End: If anyone thinks we're too mature to make an ass joke here, I'm sorry to disappoint you. At tight end we have none other than Jordan Golson of Cheese And Crackers. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.

Fullback: A fullback needs to be able to open holes for his teammates to run through. They have to care more about the team than personal glory. That describes Dummocrats' own James K. Hat. Hat's behind-the-scenes work allows the rest of us to post freely. And, when he does post he's extremely effective.

Running Back: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has time and again shown the ability to take the ball and run with it. When a hole opens (for example, when CBS puts some memos online), Johnson can explode and score.

Quarterback: We're making Captain Ed from Captain's Quarters our field master. Beyond all the quality work he does, it just sounds right.

Wide Receiver: As we wrote above, Ann Althouse is a two-way player on this team. And, with her new sports car, the speedy wide receiver role should fit her even better now.

Wide Receiver: Finally, on offense, we have Hindrocket from Power Line. Now, we really have nothing clever to tie Hindrocket to the position. But, come on, "Hindrocket"? It's a crying shame that there's not already a real wide receiver with that name. Sure, there is already the Rocket Ismail, but everyone knows that by definition a "HIND" rocket is waaay better than a regular plain ol' rocket, just like a car with rear wheel drive knocks the mudflaps off of your momma's front wheel drive.

No team is complete without some Special Teams players:

Long Snapper: Given that he's blogging all the way from Oz, who else could we choose but Tim Blair?

Return Specialist: Eric Lindholm from Viking Pundit. As a Packer fan, the word "Viking" naturally leads us to the word "special" (in a short bus kind of way). Now, we realize Lindholm is from Massachusetts, not Minnesota, but still, close enough.

Holder: Our own John Tant gets the call here. He fits on special teams in a Heather Locklear as "special guest star" on Melrose kind of way. Plus, his thoughtful posts certainly "hold" the fort down when James and I are off putting our energy into more fanciful stuff like this.

Kicker: On many teams, the kicker is ostracized. He's on the team, but not quite a part of the team. I'd imagine that Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush can probably relate to this right about now.

Punter: Andrew Sullivan is, naturally, our punter. Like a kicker, the punter is often ostracized. Additionally, you kind of associate the punter with failure, much like Sullivan associated himself with Kerry at the height of his popularity, only to see that ship slowly sink.

Finally, every team needs a good Front Office and coaching staff and other misc. personnel:

Head Coach: Hugh Hewitt is our coach. While other coaches inspire with declarations like "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing", Hewitt's mantra to fellow right wing bloggers was "If it's not close they can't cheat". It certainly worked for the election.

GM: Eugene Volokh is perfect for the role of the cerebral and dispassionate General Manager. With him in the front office, we expect decisions to be made through logic rather than emotion.

Clipboard Holder: Now normally this positions goes to the backup QB, but we're willing to make an exception for Ambra Nykol from Nykola. Her tagline is "Bothering people since 1981" and really, what do clipboard holders do other than bother people? She's in.

Salary Cap Guru: Anyone who checked out Dales' Electoral College Breakdown throughout the campaign realizes that if Gerry Daly can deal with the complexity of all the various polls, the salary cap should be a snap.

With his continuing need for more COWbell, we think that Ace will be just the perfect cheerleader.

Finally, no team is complete without some fans. No doubt that Hundred Percenter is giving this team 110% (oh the irony!) support.

Go team go!

Posted by at February 5, 2005 10:00 PM

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