The Five Tool Trial: The People vs. Kurt Warner

(Bailiff enters)

All rise!

(Judge enters)

Hear ye, hear ye, ladies and gentlemen of Blogfrica. Five Tool Court is now in session to determine the fate of Kurt Warner, quarterback of the Arizona Football Cardinals. Mr. Warner stands accused of the following crimes:

> Multiple counts of criminal abuse of a religious deity

> Multiple counts of fraud, from misrepresenting the excellence of his teammates as his own

> Multiple counts of animal husbandry, because there’s no way that, recent improvements to the contrary, Brenda Warner is human

> Multiple counts of giving aid and comfort to Red State Americans who should have neither aid nor comfort

If found guilty, Warner will be afflicted with a cancer to be determined by the prosecutor, and I think we all know where he's going to put it.

He will also take the position as the third member in FTT's Quarterback Phantom Zone, and will be eventually Photoshopped into a 3-way with Brett Favre and Tony Romo, and more likely than not, made to take the Sarah Douglass position, with the little bob haircut.

(collective gasp from the crowd)

If found innocent, Warner will remain free as an honorable combatant to Eagles Nation, with no greater scorn or malice than dozens, if not hundreds, of other NFL players.

Your votes in the comments shall decide Warner's fate. Choose wisely.

The prosecuting attorney is Tracer Bullet. He has the opening statement.

Thank you, your honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do not envy you today. For today, you have to gaze into the very soul of a man – a man prone to inappropriate outbursts of religiosity, a man given to denigrating the hard work of his coaches and teammates by ascribing all success to his imaginary friend in the sky, a man whose self-aggrandizing pieties are so shocking, so naked, so base and profane that one wonders if he doth not protest too much – and you must judge him.

Is Kurt Warner, in fact, a Satanist? No. Probably. Is he an insufferable god-botherer who should take that Jesus schtick somewhere where men don’t spend their work hours trying to destroy each other and the off-hours trying to destroy themselves? That is for you to decide.

For today, you must look into the very soul of Kurt Warner, and you must judge him. Indeed, his story is impressive, going from the Arena League to now his second Super Bowl. Yes, he deserves praise for saving untold numbers of billy goats by marrying that wire-haired man-goblin he calls a wife and taking her from beneath that bridge where she’d lived for centuries. But does that absolve him from shoe-horning some tortured reference to Jebus into every conversation? That is for you to decide.

For today, you must look into the very soul of Kurt Warner, and you must judge him.

Does not the Bible, a book that, as we will prove, Kurt Warner has sex with on a regular basis, say in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, verse five: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward."

Is a post-game interview anything but a street corner writ large? By that standard, by his own standard, I say YEA VERILY, Kurt Warner is but the basest and most foul of hypocrites. A man who feigns piety for his own glory.

And so, by that standard, by the standard of any reasonable man or woman, you must gaze into the soul of Kurt Warner and you must judge him. No, ladies and gentlemen of the jury I do not envy you, for you must sit in judgment of a man today. Yet, judge him you must and judge him you shall. You must name him for the beast that he his: A self-righteous ass-clown.

Good luck. I thank you for your often thankless service.

Warner's court-appointed defense attorney is DMtShooter. His rebuttal is as follows.

People of the jury, I am not here to defend all of the actions and choices of Jebus's Own Quarterback. I share neither the faith nor the inclination to defend all of the actions of a man who, like a child, should be seen and not heard. As an Eagles' fan, I deeply desired that his last game would have resembled "The Passion of the Christ", only with more gore.

But the simple fact is that Warner, while guilty of a fair number of crimes, is not worthy of banishment to the Phantom Zone, nor the prosecutor’s insistence on dick cancer. He is, simply, no worse than most of his NFL brethren. Consider the following.

1) He's not a Manning.

2) He doesn't pout on the field like Jay Cutler.

3) He doesn't drink with the underaged, like his back-up, Matt Leinart.

4) He hasn't made his coach think he's going to off himself like a bulimic teenager, a la Vince Young.

5) He doesn't impregnate models, run up the score, and make decent people spit, like Tom Brady.

I've just named five quarterbacks more worthy of banishment. Where is the prosecutor's dick cancer for them?

Warner's greatest crime for the prosecutor is that he beat the Eagles in a big playoff game. Which brings up the other matter: why Warner, more than Brad Johnson? Why him, more than the quarterback who has not only beaten the Eagles at home in a playoff game, but also gave the Cardinals safe passage to the game in which they defeated the Eagles?

And yet Jake Delhomme is free to walk the streets, admittedly drunk, homeless and in disguise, lest he suffer the same fate as Benito Mussolini. But a free man nonetheless.

No, Warner's biggest crime is simply his jersey. Had he been wearing the local laundry, and won a Super Bowl, we would not be here today. Instead, we would all be kneeling in his church, hopeful that our hero was about to take our team to the promised land once again.

The prosecutor would be on his knees, accepting Kurt's communion. And he would not be alone.

The defense rests.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what say you?