Richard B. Belichick, aka "Dick"

At the NRO, the comparison has been made between the curmudgeonly cheating coach of the New England Patriots and the Trickiest Dick of them all, i.e. Nixon.

I disagree. Bill Belichick is a dick alright, but I prefer the quieter more disdainful dick-- as in Richard B. Cheney. Belichick more closely approximates the utter contempt for all things civil as embodied in our current Vice-President. While he may not have shot his best friend in the face, if Bill Belichick had I could see his reaction as being very similar to his alter ego's: Drop your martini glass, stagger back into the limo and have your staffers divert the press.

This malignant personality type manifests by attempting to win at all costs and maintain that the rules only apply to everyone else. If caught breaking those rules, whether it's filming the opponents' football practice or lying about the rationale for a war that your buddies are profiting from, then just stare blankly into the camera and tell everyone to fuck the hell off. And it works... obligingly, we do fuck off.

For some unknown reason we revere assholes in our popular culture, and we often confuse a stern or pugnacious demeanor with competence. Belichick obviously has competence, having won three Super Bowls (although allegations have now come out about possible cheating in 2002 vs the Rams), but why is he such a dick, too? Can't personality and ability be mutually exclusive? I'm sure Bill Belichick is very good at drawing X's and O's on chalkboards, but let's face a dark fact: If Tom Brady were on any one of a dozen other teams over the last decade, New England never would have seen one Halas Trophy. (I say that with a heavy heart for my perennially quarterback-deficient Bears and despite my lifetime disdain for all things from University of Michigan.)

There seems to be a subsection of our culture that acts as perpetually abused spouses, accepting bad behavior and seeming to relish in the attention from our abusers, whether they take the form of football coach or politician. Our press, especially the right-wing press represented by NRO, beautifully takes on the role of enabler for these serially abusers.

Nixon, Belichick or Cheney? At this point, NRO can't keep all their dicks straight.