tadcranky

Congressman Shuler?
As you probably know, Heath Shuler is running for Congress, in North Carolina's 11th District, which includes Asheville. Shuler, as you also know, is as good a symbol as any for the decline of the Redskins, in the post-Jack Kent Cooke, everything we touch turns to crap era. Shuler is running as a Democrat, which was surprising to me, given that most ex-jocks go the other way. (Even black ones, like Lynn Swann, who is running for Governor of Pennsylvania. I guess that would make sense to the people who think Martin Luther King was a Republican, but stuff like that always puzzles me. Though not as much as gay Republicans. But I digress...) Shuler's political affilliation is also surprising to me, because he seems to be somewhat of a bible-thumper, and my experience is that people like that think that Democrats are spawns of satan.

Anyway, one of the millions of long-suffering Redskins fans has created a blog, Stop Shuler, which is devoted, as you may guess, to keeping him away from Washington. I agree that it would be rubbing it in our faces to have him back here. But I guess his opponent is pretty evil, so I'd still probably vote for Heath, although it doesn't matter at all, since I don't live in the 11th District of North Carolina. It's an amusing blog, but I wouldn't be mentioning it except for the fact that Shuler actually agreed to be interviewed by the site's host. And it wasn't a guerilla, Ali G-style interview, Shuler was fully aware of the site. So he gets credit for being a good sport. The interview is very funny, the interviewer really makes no attempt at all to play nice. Shuler comes off OK, although he still seems kind of dopey. His kids are named Navy and Island; he and his wife came up with those gems after looking at a map. It would have been cool if they had quadruplets and named them North, South, East and West. He's apparently big on something called "mountain values," which the interviewer also, justly, makes fun of.

It would be like cheating if I didn't mention that I found out about Stop Shuler and the interview on D.C. Sports Bog, which is a blog done by Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, and is always a great read. Although it's a little soccer-heavy, and all the cheese stuff sounds pretty interesting, but generally goes over my head.