Live: The Triumph of the Tide!

12:41 a.m. I’d like to extend gracious condolences to Texas fans. I’d like to, but . . . ROLL TIDE! And don’t forget to hit the tip jar!

12:06 a.m.: Alabama intercepts again. That’s your game, folks! The crowd in Pasadena goes wild! ROLL TIDE!

12:02 a.m.: Trent Richardson TD. Extra point misses. Alabama 37, Losers 21 with 47 seconds to play.

MIDNIGHT: Javier Arenas intercepts. It’s all over now.

11:54 p.m.: TOUCHDOWN! MARK INGRAM! ROLL TIDE! 2:01 to play. Extra point good. Alabama 31, Losers 21.

11:48 p.m.: ‘Bama defense forces a fumble. Tide recovers at the Texas 4 yard line.

11:47 p.m.: Alabama punts. Texas takes over at their 7 yard line with 3:14 to play.

11:35 p.m.: Texas TD pass. Two-point conversion good. Alabama 24, Texas 21. Hmmmm.

11:28 p.m.: With Texas fans Brad and Cheryl:

11:23 p.m.: Alabama misses a field goal.

11:12 p.m.: We go to the fourth quarter. Roll Tide!

11:11 p.m.: Texas punt puts Alabama at its own 6 yard line.

11:08 p.m.: Texas recovers an onside kick. Maybe this game isn’t over yet.

11:06 p.m.: Texas scores on a touchdown pass. Fans cheer. Extra point good. Alabama 24, Losers 13.

11:03 p.m.: JSF just commented: “Once Colt got knocked out, that was it. [Texas] had no contigency plan.”

11 p.m.: Colt McCoy isn’t crying. Yet.

10:54 p.m.: My Twitter buddies are talking about a streaker at the Rose Bowl. Wasn’t me. I have remained fully clothed. Excuse the long delay between posts. Somebody found out I worked for a political magazine and wanted to argue. I don’t think it was Patrick Frey, but . . .

10:51 p.m.: During halftime, my son Jefferson called to say of the first quarter, “We let ’em win for a while, just so our comeback would be more glorious.”

THIRD QUARTER: If “the eyes of Texas are upon you,” ‘Horns, they’re pretty embarrassed right about now.

HALFTIME:

JSF of Valley of the Shadows at the Sports Desk.

Kobe Beef Sliders: Official BCS Dinner. Official BCS Waitress Melissa just ended her shift and closed out the tab for $44.65. I tipped her $7. Hit the tip jar.

10:03 p.m.: ‘Bama defense strips the ball from Texas backup QB Gilbert, runs for a touchdown! Extra point good. Crimson Tide 24, Losers 6.

9:59 p.m.: Field goal! Alabama 17, Losers 6. The Burbank ‘Bama Brigade is cheering loudly here.

9:53 p.m.: Texas faces 4th and 6th at their own 6. Punting from their end zone. Returned by Alabama to the Texas 29.

9:51 p.m.: Alabama punts, pinning down Texas at their 2 yard line.

9:50 p.m.: Alabama’s running game now dominating. I’ve said all along the Tide should stick to the running game. Blog buddy JSF of Valley of the Shadow just said, “They heard you down in Pasadena.”

9:47 p.m.: Javier Arenas intercepts!

9:41 p.m.: TOUCHDOWN! ROLL TIDE! Upchurch runs 48 yards. Extra point good. Alabama 14-6.

9:37 p.m.: Texas forced to punt. Tide takes over at Texas 49.

9:36 p.m.: My friend and tip-jar hitter Victor Morton is a Texas fan. Because he hit the tip jar, I’m obligated to feel sorry for him, but not Colt McCoy.

9:32 p.m.: Alabama punts. Third beer arrives, courtesy of Melissa, the Official BCS Waitress of The Other McCain.

9:26 p.m.: Alabama’s defense forces Texas to punt. The formerly boisterous Texans here are strangely quiet.

9:20 p.m.: TOUCHDOWN INGRAM! ROLL TIDE! Extra point good, Alabama 7, Losers 6.

9:15 p.m.: Mark Ingram puts the Tide first and goal as the first quarter and my second beer come to an end.

9:14 p.m.: Texas penalized, for solicitation of sodomy, I think.

9:12 p.m.: Ingram runs for a first down.

9:10 p.m.: Without Colt McCoy, Texas evidently has no offense.

9:06 p.m. There are Texas fans here in the Gordon Biersch brew pub in Burbank. Patterico should have them investigated for hate crimes.

9:04 p.m.: Alabama’s defense is awesome. The offense finally got a first down.

9 p.m.: Texas QB Colt McCoy has been injured. Longhorns again settle for a field goal after an Alabama turnover. Texas 6, Alabama 0.

8:55 p.m.: Shout out to American Freedom blogger Barbara Espinosa, a Texas native who is not to blame for the inferiority of the Longhorn football team.

8:54 p.m.: Alabama defense forces the team with ugly cheerleaders to settle for a field goal.

8:53 p.m.: GOAL-LINE STAND!

8:51 p.m.: Texas loses a touchdown on a penalty. BTW, you can follow the National College Football Trash-Talking Championship on Twitter.

8:46 p.m.: Excuse the long silence. Some other team now has the ball.

8:43 p.m.: Greg McElroy throws an interception. ‘Bama’s offense so far: More suckage than Charles Johnson.

8:41 p.m.: PENALTY! We wuz robbed!

8:39 p.m.: Javier Arenas took the kickoff and failed to score a touchdown. Slackin’ off a bit.

8:37 p.m.: The coin toss: An Alabama victory!

8:35 p.m.: BTW, all times are Eastern. I refuse to reset my watch to Left-Coast Crazy Time.

8:34 p.m.: The national anthem. Your Official BCS Waitress just brought me my second Official BCS Beer.

8:32 p.m.: The Crimson Tide takes the field. Grown men gasp in astonishment. Women tremble with delight!

8:22 p.m.: Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to introduce the official waitress of the 2010 BCS liveblog, Melissa:

8:15 p.m. — The University of Alabama Million Dollar Band is now performing, and triumphing victoriously over every other band in the universe.

BURBANK, Calif.
We’re liveblogging the ‘Bama Championship Show (BCS) which is at the Rose Bowl in nearby Pasadena, while we’re at the world-famous Gordon Biersch brew pub in beautiful downtown Burbank, having been denied media credentials by Stephanie Montano, obergruppenfuhrer of the collegiate football oligarchy. If Charles Johnson wants to find fascism in America, the BCS fascisti are a good place to start.

I will be assisted in this effort by JSF of the Valley of the Shadow blog, on whose sofa I’ll be crashing tonight. Standby for exciting updates about the Crimson Tide’s unstoppable surge to the 13th national championship in Alabama history . .

The Right-Wing Blogosphere’s Official BCS Pre-Game Show

We’ll be live-blogging as soon as the ‘Bama Championship Show (BCS) begins (8 p.m. ET, ABC), but first we bring you this pre-game show, recorded yesterday at the BCS media headquarters in Newport Beach:

Hanging out with the Crimson Tide trainers: Matt Price, Vernon, Ala.; Bryant Swindle, Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Jonta Pritchett, Jackson, Ala.; and Clay Keith of Toccoa, Ga.

Orzag’s Bastard

It’s not just the budget he’s screwing:

President Obama’s budget guru has a secret love child — with the woman he jilted before hooking up with his hot new fiance, The Post has learned.
White House budget director Peter Orszag’s ex, shipping heiress Claire Milonas, gave birth to little Tatiana Zoe in New York Nov. 17. That was just six weeks before Orzsag and ABC news babe Bianna Golodryga gleefully announced their engagement on national TV and in the press. . . .
‘‘Claire told Peter she was pregnant, and he said he’d marry her — and then something went wrong,’’ a source close to the situation told The Post.

(Via Memeorandum.) Liberals are so compassionate!

‘We Were Very Lucky’

Tucker Carlson’s business partner talks to Dave Weigel about The Daily Caller:

[After the site was announced at the Heritage Foundation in May] Carlson and his partner Neil Patel — a former aide to Dick Cheney — raised money, scouted out staff (”we didn’t ask about ideology,” said Carlson) and held poker games at their original, grimier office in Washington’s Dupont Circle. A June launch date was pushed into autumn, and then pushed back again. The reason, explained Patel, was that “our aspirations kept growing.”
“The size of the staff is much bigger than we started with,” Patel said. “We were very lucky to get the amount of money we did based, basically, on a PowerPoint.”

Among the more interesting quotes in the story:

Conor Friedersdorf, a freelance journalist who worked for the short-lived site Culture11, contrasted Carlson’s focus on journalism with the much-praised, quick-hitting tactics of Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, Big Government, and Big Journalism.
“I hope that The Daily Caller aspires to produce writing that is as well written and professionally edited as the stuff that the talented Tucker Carlson writes for Esquire,” said Friedersdorf. “The alternative — the Andrew Breitbart model — is to publish poorly reasoned, atrociously edited screeds on the cheap, on the assumption that ideologically friendly readers will keep clicking anyway.”

It so happens I read Friedersdorf’s quote this morning in a room at the Crown Plaza in Redondo Beach with Mike Flynn, editor of Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com. “That dude’s always slagging Breitbart,” Flynn said. “What’s his problem?”

Last month, I took a vow to stop slagging the Daily Caller. With $3 million in start-up capital, they’ll be around at least through the November elections and it would be wrong for Carlson’s operation to suffer from red-on-red fire from the outset. But as I said in May, it had better not suck.

UPDATE: Also here at the Crowne Plaza is the publisher of the Quincy (Ill.) News., a year-old online start-up. The publisher (who prefers to keep his name offline) raised an eyebrow at Weigel’s report that Daily Caller now has a staff of 21: “Lean and mean is the way to go in the New Media environment.”

UPDATE 1/9: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I’m now in the hills of Hollywood, Calif., getting ready to cover a Tea Party event today in Altadena. It’s sunny and 70, but this won’t last long. I’m considering a trip next week to cover the Scott Brown Senate race in Massachusetts.