Michael Vick is almost surely going to jail and his football career is probably over. All the years he spent as a pampered celebrity in the general vicinity of education did not provide him with the insight that torturing dogs is not good and, besides that, could get him in trouble.
The plea bargain he struck with federal prosecutors in Richmond, Va., yesterday gives no real suggestion that he knows right from wrong. He does know that his former friends turned on him for the prosecutors, and that he is in big trouble, which is a start.
In one significant way, Michael Vick is part of the values of middle America: He is another symptom of America’s major gambling jones.
Up to now, Vick had been scrambling, looking for an opening, the same way he played quarterback ”” past tense, most likely. But yesterday, the play ended. By admitting to charges from the vile operations of the Bad Newz Kennels in rural Virginia, he could go away for up to five years, although he will probably serve only one.
That guilty plea should be quite enough for the N.F.L. to bar him permanently, particularly because of the gambling implications. These people who slipped furtively into the camouflaged farm Vick owned were not there just because they liked to see dogs chew each other to death. They were gambling.
Read it all (Scroll down the page about half way).
Update: Stephon Marbury defended Michael Vick, calling dogfighting a sport.
Marbury doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Hunters observe strict limits as to what they kill, not only as to numbers of animals taken but as to not shooting females during seasons where they might be with young. One of the most horrible experiences for a hunter is to wound an animal – the object is to kill it in a way similiar to Kosher law – quickly and with the minimum of pain.
Hunters are among the most avid conservationists. Hunters can come home happy having not taken anything, because they delight in being out in nature and want that environment preserved.
My older son took two deer last season – both died quickly from well aimed shots. We are still making meals with the meat from those kills…will empty the freezer just in time for his next hunting trip.
To compare all of the above to dog fighting is absurd.
As for Michael Vick, he’s like Elvis. He “had it all”, and surrounded himself with parasitic idiots who took while the gettin’ was good. People who claimed to be his friends and expected loyalty from him let him wallow in a debased lifestyle and then gave him up when the gravy train stopped.
Vick will be back:
1. He has a huge amount of talent at the most high-profile position in American’s most high-profile sport.
2. As foul as his crime was, it’s not the worst the NFL has tolerated. Ray Lewis was charged with murder, for crying out loud, and went on to play in several Pro Bowls along with winning Defensive Player of the Year at least twice, as I recall. Vick’s no choirboy, but his crime doesn’t deserve – and won’t receive – an infinite amount of punishment, either by the criminal courts or by the NFL.
3. A large segment of the public loves to see people like Vick come out of the other end of the tunnel. They want to know what happens to OJ after the trial, Paris after prison, Lindsay after rehab.
Vick will be back – the only questions, really, is whether it will be for the 2009 or 2010 season, and what team will pick him up coughRAIDERScough.
this time Greg does not go too far (re: the having children thread) – he will be back.
I think he should get an additional year of mandatory English lessons for spelling news with a Z. (Yes, I realize he quite possibly knows how to spell “news” correctly, but the whole changing “S” to “Z” thing to sound edgy really irks me. Not only that, but it doesn’t sound edgy, it makes you sound like a mindless thug wannabe)
/rant
When’s the [i] South Park [/i] take on this coming out?
I agree — Vick will be back playing NFL football.
Yeah, dog fighting is a sport just like cock fighting – it’s gambling. Vick will play again. His career is just a little delayed – he probably won’t get much time either.
Ooops, I should have said rooster-fighting.
Vick is simply a thug who gets paid millions because he can through a ball. I enjoy football, but hate what free-agency has brought. The owners can’t control themselves, and neither can the agents. The players now feel they deserve millions. Its a slippery slope that is similar to the TEC drift.
Vick is a first rate scumball. He will get a minimum of 18 months maybe more. He is up against a tough judge. He is a liar and the NFL knows it. Where ever he goes protesters will and should follow. he is the poster boy for violence, stupidity and abuse. He should never play again and, I think, the NFL and the American public knows this, despite the comments on this web site.
Greg is likely right – however – most Americans love dogs. Vick spurred my wife to social activism – many nasty emails to the corporations that sponsored Vick. I think he will be a distraction for whatever team hires him for at least a season or two.
Q: Why am I having so much trouble with all the attention paid to Mr. Vick and what he and his associates did to all those poor dogs, and the fact that they gambled on it.
A: Because young, male athletes in the past have raped, abused, and killed (Yes, killed) young women and not recieved nearly the attention that Vick has for abusing and killing — dogs. (Examples, Kobe Bryant, Ray Lewis, Mike Tyson, and I can provide more, as I’m sure you can as well). Of course dog fighting is a cruel and heinous thing to do, but I seem to be detecting a lot more sympathy for the dogs involved than any of the women damaged by the antics of other athletes (all of which continued to play and be successful in their respective sports.) I’ve heard all the arguments about how the dogs are trusting and defenseless and rely on us to take care of them. That still does not put a dog’s life on the level with a human life, as I see it. Yet everyone who I speak to on this issue is hugely sympathetic of the dogs, and makes excuses concerning the women. I’d love to know what you guys think about this, being the informed and eriudite bunch that you are.
That’s why I’m irritated about this.
KTF!…mrb
The ancient Hebrew’s used animals for sacrifice because they contained had the breath of life in them. This breath of life is a gift from God that is in all animals. Indeed the word animal comes from the Latin anima and means soul. For ancient Jews when one sinned the breath of life was cut off from the sinning individual; they were cut off from God and, hence after repentance, an animal was sacrificed to release it’s breath of life to the repentant sinner so that the human could be restored to God. I guess the bottom line is that animas..animals…have the “breath of life” in them and their fate is in our hands…their fate is linked to ours. This is precisely why the Apostle Paul states that “the whole of creation groans in travail awaiting the revelation of the sons of God.” Ghandi said “you can judge the character of a nation by how it treats it’s animals.” Ghandi’s words echo truly Christian and Jewish ideal. That’s why its so important to me because animals do not have a choice they are linked to us. Most often women do have a choice about where they go, what (pick up?) bars they frequent, and who they choose to go home. Maybe they could exercise better sense or simply make wiser choices. But a society that revels in choice and tolerance and standardless freedom isn’t about to tell a woman or a man to restrain themselves and act within some moral boundaries. Dogs, cats, animals aren’t free to do any of this and are subject to and suffer from the debasement and abuse that we humans thrust upon them through our own debased choices.
Sorry about the “contained in the first line..should have proofed…
90% of the public is pretty well sickened by Vick. I’ll take the side that says he won’t play NFL football again — if I can get some odds.
I don’t know that Vick will be back. Goodell took the NFL premiership pledging to clean the sport up from some of the off-field embarrassments that were beginning to make problems in the marketing department.
Notice the man has not been on the job a full year and already NFL players are feeling his heat. Pacman Jones is gone; no guilty plea on any of the charges he faced from what I can remember. Tank Washington is gone; charged with less serious crimes than Vick.
That whole Vikings lustboat deal would be a nightmare for the players under Goodell’s current enforcement of the Good Conduct clause in the bargaining agreement. Teams are telling players to fly right and then divesting themselves of problem players who can’t control their off-field behavior and associations/friendships.
Thus, I’m not so sure that Vick will be back. Especially after year in the can and getting older with fresh QBs coming out of the NCAA football factory every year.
After his second, abbreviated season, my opinion was that the Falcons should have traded him before everybody else figured out he’s the biggest phony in the league. Vick does not have the brains or the leadership traits for an NFL QB. He skated along on his running skills while occasionally delivering a completed pass. That’s high school stuff: make the fastest guy QB and have him run when the play goes south. Vick never followed a game plan and NFL defenses are simply too big and fast for options and running QBs.
Good bye Vick, and good riddance.