Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
accompanied Bardwell to the Friday press conference
at which the longtime blogger announced his retirement.
PHOTO: Allen Thigpen.
By Will Bardwell
WillBardwell.com Assistant Sports Editor
OXFORD, Miss. -- Longtime and smalltime blogger Will Bardwell, who wrote a mildly popular and wildly incredible Mississippi-based Web site for nearly four years, has retired from Internet journalism to spend more time with his career.
"Let me stop you right there and go on the record as insisting that very little of what I did qualified as 'journalism,'" Bardwell told reporters at a lightly attended press conference on Friday morning. "This was a blog that routinely boasted the aesthetic qualities of 19th-century Supreme Court justices and once connected a Republican congressman to a 1940s comic book character through six degrees of separation. Whatever that is, it's not journalism."
Nevertheless, WillBardwell.com gained some measure of a following during its nearly four-year-long existence. The blog drew some 200,000 readers since its invention in August 2004, during which Bardwell conceived more than 3,100 posts about politics, meatloaf, Supreme Court decisions, and Sylvester Stallone sequels. And at Friday's press conference, luminaries that drew Bardwell's spotlight heaped praise upon the departing scribe.
Tom DeLay, the former majority leader in the House of Representatives, told reporters that he consulted WillBardwell.com on its long-term future, but that the recent law grad's upcoming work obligations required the blogger to step aside. "I started looking at it. We ran a poll," DeLay said. "I spent a lot of time praying about it, trying to seek what the Lord wanted me to do. And it became more and more obvious that [Bardwell] can do more outside of [the blogosphere] right now than inside."
Michelle Barlow, chief of staff to interim Sen. Roger Wicker, could not be reached for comment, and Washington insiders suggested that WillBardwell.com's demise might leave Wicker's top aides with nothing to do but develop an actual agenda.
Other WillBardwell.com favorites joined DeLay in mourning the blog's end.
"He really represents the best of his family, our state and our country," George W. Bush said in a White House press release. "One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days."
Rocky Balboa, the two-time heavyweight boxing champion whose career was tracked by a six-part documentary series, empathized with Bardwell's desire to leave behind the often-heated forum of the Internet.
"Yeah, well. Was ya ever punched in the face 500 times a night?" Balboa asked. "It stings after a while, ya know?"
But other frequent subjects of WillBardwell.com conversation were less enthusiastic. Reached by phone aboard the battle station Death Star II, noted Sith warlord Darth Vader accused Bardwell of abandoning his calling.
"Perhaps [he is] not as strong as the emperor thought," Vader said.
Mr. Horse, Bardwell's favorite childhood cartoon character, concurred.
"No sir," Horse said. "I don't like it."
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