Awwww, poor guy. Rot.
In an apparent attempt to speed his return to football, Michael Vick began serving time in prison yesterday, more than three weeks before he is scheduled to be sentenced after pleading guilty to federal dogfighting charges.
Vick, the star quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, turned himself in to United States marshals and was brought to the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Va.
Vick is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson on Dec. 10 in Richmond, and by beginning his jail time, he will be credited with time served. According to the sentencing guidelines, Vick faces from a year to 18 months in prison.
I hope he never plays football again. I hope he can never get a job when he gets out. Yeah, I know someone will probably hire him, but I’m just hoping no one ever will. What a worthless human being.
But just watch, after last night’s game against the Jets, John will probably want him!
The Other Steve
Judith Regan is working with him on a new book “How to run a Dog Fighting Ring for Dummies”
TrishB
Dammit it all, that man pisses me off. The abuse of dogs (and/or any pets) who are bred to be companions and rely on us for humane treatment riles me to no end. I hope the bastard serves the time he deserves. May he hear my schnauzers barking in his dreams forever. Okay, I know that doesn’t sound like much of a curse, but if you’ve ever lived with a schnauzer, you will know that the one thing all of them do well without question is bark. A lot. A lot a lot.
eric
Don’t forget that your pet dogs were once bloodhounds hunting down escaped slaves or police dogs used against Civil Rights marchers and political prisoners so I especially don’t understand this love of dogs (they may be a delicacy in some nations). I myself prefer cats as pets. I think dogs are on too high of a pedestal in America, and especially attack dogs don’t deserve it.
skippy
don’t forget that your pet dogs were once bloodhounds hunting down escaped slaves or police dogs used against civil rights marchers and political prisoners
even if my daschund could somehow have transmorphed into a bloodhound and visa versa, he would have to be about a 1000 years old in dog years for that to work out.
Bruce
This is about as ignorant a statement about dogs that I have ever read. There is a difference between choosing to do something, and being coercively trained and forced to do something. Most of the so-called “attack dog” breeds, if raised by humane people, are very nice pets. Dogs, like humans, are products of their environment. Good people raise good dogs, sadists raise dangerous dogs, and ignoramuses can’t tell the difference.
F
It always amuses me how some people can get so worked up about an animal or an inanimate object (The Flag), yet shrug their shoulders when real live humans are involved. Michael’s “Things I Don’t Care About: Rising Gas Prices” Post from earlier is a perfect example. As far he is concerned, why care if someone has to decide between gas to get to work or food this week, or heating oil or medicine this month, Michael Vick that bad, bad man is going away for killing some dogs and that is what I should care about.
Michael Vick is an ass, what he did was wrong and their is no explanation for it, he rightfully was judged and convicted and is going to serve time. But I don’t feel any glee in him having to go to jail, I just accept it as righteous punishment.
Michael, did you have the same feeling of hatred when some corporate schmuck bankrupts a company and devastates families and entire communities. (Enron, 80’s Savings and Loan)
Situations like this are a peek into the soul of a person, and I have to tell you, I am so tired of lapsed Republicans and Libertarians trying to back away from their party, saying they aren’t like the current party. Yet when circumstances call for compassion or maybe just acceptance out comes the hatred.
Tell me, whats the difference between Michael/John/Sulllivan, et al and their “former party”, there really isn’t any, they just have a lower degree of intolerance.
F
P.S.
I currently have two Pekingese and have owned and loved dogs from the age of 6. I’ve also had the sad misfortune in my lifetime to bury two of my dogs and both times I cried like a baby.
F
A different Matt
Micheal D,
are you a football fan? And don’t you live in Atlanta? This post is really about the cosmic injustice of being an Atlanta football fan, isn’t it?
You get Micheal Vick – Michael Vick! – in the draft in exchange for LT and a second round pick and think you got the better end of the deal. But it turns out he’s a subpar qb. Then he does two things in signing for 100 million: exposes the owner as one concerned solely with the marketability of his club while crippling the Falcons salary cap. Then he gets arrested and convicted for some behavior we thought humans left back in the 14th century.
And now, mr. libertarian, the same guy who posted about how State department personnel should be forced to serve in Iraq all of a sudden has a bout of conscience for some dogs in someone’s backyard and wishes the Invisible Fist of Justice would come down with a vengeance upon Vick. Hmmm…
alphie
Another bad brown man update?
Guess I don’t need to look in on Patterico anymore if Michael is picking up the torch…
JR
My pit mix (about 2 years old, shelter dog, scared shitless of people and likely abused as a puppy) wants to know if anyone knows where to find a “Ron Mexico #7” jersey that will fit a 40 pound terrier.
For her to POOP ON.
Ranger3
1286% –
Increase in frequency of use of the term “nigger” among my (racist) co-workers in the week following the FBI raid of Micheal Vick’s property.
Despicable –
The only appropriate word for what Micheal Vick did to those animals, and his reasons for doing them.
Ignorant –
Attempts by persons of a certain ideological persuasion to use this incident to demonize the ethnic group Vick belongs to.
Pathetic –
Attempts by persons of a certain ideological persuasion to claim that Vick’s membership in said ethnic group somehow excuses or diminishes the seriousness of his misconduct (cough Whoopie Goldburg cough) or that Vick should be given a chance at redemption (cough Keith Olberman cough).
Complete Bullshit –
Claims that Vick is being driven from the NFL primarily because he’s black, and that a white player would never be forced out this way. Anyone remember Christian Peters?
Inexplicable –
Inability of so many black people (in Atlanta, at least) to accept the reality that Vick is a bad guy and should be held accountable. Really, I don’t get it. It’s like OJ all over again. What the fuck?
Total Scumbag –
Micheal Vick. I guarantee that, while only the dog fighting charges have been proven in court, that’s not the first time Vick engaged in anti-social behavior, nor will it be the last. Expecting Vick to stop being a thug is like expecting Larry Craig to support Gay Marriage.
Off topic…
Awesome.
bernarda
So Vick is a bad guy and what he did was bad and shouldn’t have been done. But as far as I know, Vick didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t rape anyone. He didn’t beat anyone up. This is about dogs, doggone it.
At most he deserves a fine and suspended sentence. Calls for him to be deprived of his ability to earn a living are unfair. If he pays his debt to society, he has the right to be rehabilitated and continue his career. I hope a football team will hire him. Playing football is not exactly a matter of national security.
In fact, it looks like he is being punished more severely for mistreatment of animals than other pro players who are convicted of wife abuse.
What I see here are calls for vengeance and not for justice.
jake
Well, it’s nice to see Michael D. post on a topic without adding his standard “This has no effect on me, so I don’t care.”
Why the fuck he had to take a swipe at John has me scratching my head tho’.
Michael D.
jake: did you watch the game and see John’s post about how awful the Steelers played? That wasn’t a swipe at John. It was a swipe at the Steelers. Other than that, by the way, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Michael D.
Ranger3: To add to your post:
Beyond Comprehension: The fact that Alphie would use this post to suggest that I am a racist because the guy happens to be black. It couldn’t be because I simply hate people who torture and kill animals.
Or perhaps Alphie thinks all black guys torture and kill animals for fun and that my disdain for Vick would, therefore, extend to all “brown men.” I don’t know. Seems to me his is the racist statement.
jake
How the hell was I supposed to get that from your initial comment? If you’d said the Steelers would want him you wouldn’t be backpedaling now and you would avoid suggesting John would countenance a dog killer on his favorite football team.
Fixed!
Michael D.
I’m just going to assume you have medication you forgot to take this morning.
Keith
Ex-con – ability to earn a living = re-con
Everyone who’s out deserves a chance to earn a living, no matter how disgusting they are (because if they’re that disgusting a human being, they shouldn’t be out; that being said, few debts to society are unpayable)
jake
No way dude. I forgot to take the pills a few times and it was awful. Not only did libertarian gibberish start to make sense, but I found myself nodding in sympathy when someone made a straight-forward but stupid statement and then wailed “No fair! That’s not what I meant at all!” when they were called on it. Horrible.
But seriously, I am disappointed. After the comment about Riverdancing SoCons, I expect a bit more from you than worn out snark about meds. As the hooker said to the virgin, would you like to try again?
Jen
He’s a revolting excuse for a human being. There are people all over the world being born into unfortunate circumstances, dealing with poverty and broken homes and discrimination, who somehow manage to avoid electrocuting animals for sport.
Punchy
He makes a damn good vapor rub, however.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Absolutely true. I know a number of people who own American Staffordshires (a.k.a. Pit Bulls) and when these dogs are raised by caring and responsible people, they are absolute sweethearts.
vanya
Vick should never play QB again. But he should come back to football as a wideout, or maybe as one of those running-catching versatile 3rd down backs – think back to Dave Megget on the Giants or Kevin Faulk today on the Patriots. Vick would excel in that role. And the standards of behavior for a non-QB are much lower – people will excuse a running back for bad judgement, they won’t excuse a QB.
Punchy
Until they one day up and eat you.
RSA
Great, an able-bodied man on the welfare rolls.
Jen
I’d allow a $7/hour job cleaning cages at the animal shelter when he gets out, I think.
Let me just expound on the obvious cruelty of this to add, just how big of an idiot is this guy? I mean, this is one of the exceptional talents in football, almost limitless career and income potential, and he’s going to get involved with felonies? That is singularly, spectacularly, stupid.
bago
Someone that intentionally kills dogs can’t even
Compare someone that sends humans to certain death.
At least he didn’t waterboard the dogs. They were straight up drowned to death.
The Other Steve
My Dachshund is smart. When someone pulls out the vacuum cleaner, she comes running because she knows… SHE KNOWS! that the cats are going to run away from the vacuum cleaner, and she wants a part of that action.
And the cat’s aren’t alone. She also will jump up against the side of the bed to wake us up in the morning, terrorizing us in our dreams.
Whoa be it to any slaves or civil rights marchers. There’s no way they’d be able to escape the terror that is Roxie Doxie.
Bob In Pacifica
Can anyone remember any other FEDERAL case about dogfighting? I can’t. It’s the kind of thing that gets prosecuted by the state courts or municipalities. Why is the force of the federal government cracking down on dogfighting? And please don’t trot out, “Well, he crossed state lines,” because that didn’t seal the deal here. Why not just hand the information over to the local prosecutor?
Remember, when the power of the federal government was wandering over the state of Virginia looking for evidence and coming down on Michael Vick it was ignoring the criminal activities of a gang in Langley which was kidnapping people off the streets taking them out of the country and having them tortured. That should qualify as a federal crime, no?
And the federal government has now spent millions of dollars and four years and numerous grand juries out here in California in order to indict someone for, hold onto your hats, folks, lying about taking steroids!
The levers of the federal government are prosecuting famous black athletes instead targeting more serious crimes. How come? Why is dogfighting more important than people-torturing? Why has the federal government gone four years to say “gotcha!” to Barry Bonds instead of actually looking into real crimes?
I think the answer is obvious. The Republicans benefit from demonizing the black man. It is a racist ploy to gain a political advantage. Think of how much people hate Bonds and Vick. Who here thinks that that hate doesn’t translate into political advantage at some unconscious level? The 1994 OJ Simpson trial translated into the election of a Republican House of Representatives. Take a look at things that Newt Gingrich said back then blaming the immoral and lawless behavior on Bill Clinton. Gingrich even blamed the murder of Susan Smith’s children on Bill Clinton.
I can remember a time when “conservatives” were upset when the federal government prosecuted people for crimes (like murdering civil rights workers) that should have been handled by the state. Now they rejoice and celebrate state crimes being handled by the feds. Another 180. Take a look at your local federal prosecutor and see what he’s prosecuting and what he isn’t. Then try to get in touch with your feelings. What do you feel?
Bob In Pacifica
By the way, going into this season Michael Vick’s completion percentage was lower than SF’s Alex Smith.
jcricket
I think forcing animals to fight/kill for sport/money is pretty despicable. There’s no excuse, and I’m glad that Michael Vick is being properly punished for his crimes.
But I agree, the whole “let him never work again” thing is a bit much. He’ll likely never make a dime endorsing a product again, will have to pay back large bonuses and forfeit future earnings, and I doubt he’ll be hired by any NFL team. Plus he’s in jail. That’s a pretty big punishment. If he serves his time, doesn’t do this again, and someone hires him, fine. Unless you fundamentally believe everyone should be “locked up for life”, it’s just counter-productive to wish everyone who gets out of prison that’s committed a heinous crime be unable to ever be a member of society again (this is one reason I support the re-instating of voting rights for felons).
I do agree with the poster that the outrage over any harm befalling animals seems out-sized when compared to the lack of similar “froth” when it comes to farther-reaching economic crimes against communities of humans. While I don’t really want to get into a game of “what’s worse”, why does someone who fights dogs go to jail and get pilloried by everyone, where someone who fucks over 50,000+ jobs and ability to retire basically generally get a big fine and a suspended sentence? Why don’t they arouse such ire (outside of the people they’ve directly hurt)?
akaoni
Bob in Pacifica lays down the most righteous and cogent post in this discussion.
David
The sad/funny part is that he wasn’t one of the exceptional talents in football (unless he decided to start playing running back), but he had limitless income potential anyway. He didn’t even have to be good at his job to make multiple king’s ransoms doing it!
teak111
Thank you John Butler, RIP.
Jen
I cop to not being a football fan. My husband thinks he can run really fast and was a pretty damn good athlete, so I am sort of piggybacking. Maybe he wasn’t, I dunno. Still. Stupid.
As for the relative outrage thing, I am outraged by human torture. I think anyone who wets people down and electrocutes them is also sub-human. It’s just that it’s not what we’re talking about, right? It’s kind of like having a discussion about the deplorable state of health care in the U.S. and someone bringing up, well, there’s ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur. Nobody’s saying that that is o.k. just because that doesn’t happen to be what we’re talking about. Believe me, if you want me to expound on what I am outraged about by the Bush administration you’d better order Chinese and bring a blanket, because the party ain’t gon’ stop any time soon.
wonkie
To the poster who thinks Vick shouldhave been fined: fines aren’t enough. Dog fighting is big business and Vick is wealthy. He would have paid the fine with a laugh and gone right on torturing dogs.
To the people who think this is all about race: it’s not. It’s about cruelty.
As far as getting a job: i hopw he gets a soul first. if he does, then I hopr he gets a job, too. I think that part of his punishment should be a requirement to put in a couple of months as a careprovider in a no-kill rescue shelter.
AS far as caring more about animals that people: bullshit argument. There is no either/or. It’s not like onne person is only capable of so much caring and has to divide it between people annd annimals. Maybe tthepeople who make that argument are caring-impaired, but that’s no reason to assume that others have a similar handicap.
bernarda
Bob in Pacifica basically has it right, but others go on about a bunch of dogs.
Here are a few cases of what pro athletes, particularly footballers, to human beings.
http://www.mariahburtonnelson.com/Articles/badsport.htm
” Phoenix Cardinals quarterback Timm Rosenbach quit pro football after the 1992 season, leaving behind a $1.05 million annual salary. “I thought I was turning into an animal,” he told Ira Berkow of the New York Times. “You go through a week getting yourself up for the game by hating the other team, the other players. You’re so mean and hateful, you want to kill somebody. Football’s so aggressive. Things get done by force. Then you come home, you’re supposed to turn it off? ‘Oh, here’s your lovin’ Daddy.’ It’s not that easy. It was like I was an idiot. I felt programmed. I had become a machine.”’
Some more examples of gridiron heroes.
http://www.bullz-eye.com/stalter/2007/0323.htm
But oh no, Vick hurt a few puppies.
Jake
I thought he was prosecuted under a relatively new law that made animal cruelty a federal crime. Can I see why a prosecutor would want to make this the test case? Abso-fucking-lutely. I know this extreme optimism on my part but I hope all the other creeps holding backyard dog fights will see what happened to a football player and cut it out.
So what’s the solution? Don’t prosecute minorities until/unless you’re also prosecute non-minorities? I understand the argument but I also think it ultimately leads you nowhere.
BIRDZILLA
PETA has killed a lot more animals then vick ever did and they have yet been punished but used the vick event to make more money to kill more animals
Chris Johnson
Bob In Pacifica nailed it.
When you’re immensely desensitized and fixing to stay that way, you come up with exceptions and cling passionately to those. I know one crowd, probably over 9000 people, who will giggle at any human atrocity but for the most part rebel against cruelty to cats. Cats get a pass.
By the same token, this is American public opinion, so you’re expected to giggle at any sort of torture, police shooting, ideally in future you shrug at squads of people breaking in doors in the dead of night and disappearing people the government doesn’t like, but by GOD you don’t hurt any dogs! Dogs are all-American!
Simple psychological mechanism really. The question to ask is, how come we so easily consider other human beings with lives and aspirations and families to be not simply sub-human, but sub-dog?
jcricket
BIRDZILLA – Sorry, can’t hear you. Can you repeat what you said in audible tones? Or perhaps even in English?
SueinNM
Some of you people astonish me, assuming that we can’t be outraged at more than one thing at a time. Do I despise the corporate jerks who destroy people’s lives? check. Do I despise torture? check. Do I despise child abuse? check. Do I despise spousal abuse? check. Do I despise cruelty against companion animals? check.
But I reserve my deepest outrage for those who abuse the weak and dependent: elders, children and animals. People who cause deliberate pain to those unable to defend themselves belong in a special place in hell, if such a place existed. I don’t give a damn if the abusers are black, white, male, female. No difference to me.
Vick was a man of power and wealth who chose to use those attributes to commit atrocious acts against creatures that had no choice.
Bernarda and friends: My dogs Freya, Nahla and Cagney, all rescued from abusive owners–one of whom cut off Nahla’s ears and tail when she was born so that she could be used as bait by dogfighters here in NM–are sincerely grateful that they ended up with someone who actually considered them worth saving … in other words, not someone like you.
J. Lynne
Torturing and murdering animals for fun is just one step away from being a serial killer.
Pugs were bred to be the lapdogs and court jesters of kings. My puppy is more likely to be hunting down escaped crumbs from last night’s leftovers than to be participating in any kind of energetic violence.
PNitty
Michael, you’re obviously not a football fan. leaving aside the dogfighting issues, vick is a crappy, overrated, overhyped QB. despite the jets loss on sunday, roethlisberger is a far, far superior QB compared to vick (as a ravens fan, it pains me to admit this).
Jen
You go, Sue. I mean, there IS a certain novelty to saying that other highly paid professional athletes who have presumably chosen their careers and the accompanying risk of their own free will are somehow even bigger victims than abused dogs, but still. As an argument, it, uh, sucks.
I’m glad you were able to help those dogs. My aunt has an incredibly sweet dog who she calls her “mailbox dog”. He is so named because some other sub-human decided to leave a litter of puppies in her neighbor’s mailbox. Those neighbors were on vacation, and all of the puppies but that one died in the summer heat in that mailbox, while they were gone. Hell is not hot enough.
Evinfuilt
BIRDZILLA is right, PETA is just as evil as Vick (and yes, Evil is what I’d use to describe drowning dogs, or “rescuing” dogs and then just throwing them into a furnace/freezer.)
Doesn’t excuse either from their crimes. Just PETA has a pass somehow, I can’t wait for the day they get punished for their crimes to animals, and to all the people they lie/cheat to, to steal their money.
We don’t have to worry about Vick becoming a criminal when he’s out, he kinda made a few dollar before screwing up. He’ll also have plenty opportunities as an ex-celeb in speaking fee’s or becoming a HS football coach. Or more hopefully, he just disappears and becomes a normal human (maybe helping run a no-kill shelter.)
Punchy
Jesus fucking christ. Hating Bonds because he’s a pompous ass, and hating Vick cuz he offed dozens of mutts is now a politcal play? I’ve heard it all, now.
A racist ploy to arrest a minority b/c he broke the law, egregiously. Bob, I want to know what you’re smoking, cuz it’s all sorts of stupid.
grumpy realist
How about if we hate Vicks because he did some pretty awful things?
And no, I don’t think the Feds went after him because he was black. They went after him because he was a high-profile individual, they had the goods on him, and they wanted to make it stick.
Is is really that he “can’t work” at all? Or that he’s banned from particular activities? I don’t think the first is possible–the second is. (We regularly see people convicted of financial crimes barred from holding certain jobs.) Of course, I’m not exactly sure what barring Vicks from anything to do with football would have to do with dog-fighting. If US football teams want to get together and decide to blackball Vicks because they’re worried about the reputation they would get, that’s their own perogative. I don’t see why Vicks couldn’t hypothetically go abroad and start playing for (say) a football team in Japan….
HyperIon
whose general stupidity is this “filed under”? i see several possibilities.
tBone
Are you guys reading a different Bob in Pacifica post than I am? Because the one I see contains things like this:
Uh, OK.
Some of you really need to take off your binary glasses. It’s not a choice between “be outraged at Michael Vick’s scumbag behavior” or “be outraged at even worse behavior from even bigger scumbags.” It’s possible to do both.
The Truffle
If it’s any consolation, the Michael Vick Chew Toy makes a great gift for your special canine.
Gus
bernarda, please read Jen’s post at 10:43. Then read it again.
Evinfuilt
Thank you so much for that, my dogs will love it (hope its not made in China, its shiny so uhm… I hope not.)
Bonus that my dog loves to drop her toys in the toilet.
ImJohnGalt
Hey, if dog-fighting was so bad, wouldn’t the free market not provide it to the public?
Sam Hutcheson
Torturing and murdering animals for fun is just one step away from being a serial killer.
Then again, so is the National Football League.
Also, the link bernada posted “bullz eye or something” mentioned Jonathan Babineaux along with all the other bad, bad men of the NFL. It should probably be mentioned that last week the state of Georgia and Dekalb County dropped all charges of cruelty to animals against Babineaux.
And yeah, Vick did bad things to dogs. If he were released tomorrow I’d start him Sunday over Byron Leftwich or Joey Harrington.
eric
Punchy Says:
I think the answer is obvious. The Republicans benefit from demonizing the black man. It is a racist ploy to gain a political advantage. Think of how much people hate Bonds and Vick. Who here thinks that that hate doesn’t translate into political advantage at some unconscious level?
Jesus fucking christ. Hating Bonds because he’s a pompous ass, and hating Vick cuz he offed dozens of mutts is now a politcal play? I’ve heard it all, now.
A racist ploy to arrest a minority b/c he broke the law, egregiously. Bob, I want to know what you’re smoking, cuz it’s all sorts of stupid.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
————————————-
You should reread the post above about PETA, but here’s a link for research to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETA
eric
PS to tBone
Bob In Pacifica has nailed it.
kwg
I doubt from previous comments that this will be very well received, but think about the lives of the animals you routinely eat. They’re probably not far removed from those of Vick’s dogs. I think what Michael Vick did was deplorable, but let’s have some perspective here. Whenever I hear this type of story I think of the guy in the sports bar shaking his head in sympathy over Barbaro being euthanized, while chewing a mouthful of hamburger. At some point you’d think the cognitive dissonance would be too much to bear.
Mike
BOO FUCKING HOO DOG LOVERS. no body gives a shit about a mangy ass dog. Go to china and see how they feel about a flea bitten nasty ass dog. Fuck all you tofurkey eating pussy ass hippy PETA members. Dog = animal. Animals = lower on the food chain and thus here for our pleasure. I hope he open another kennel and fights dogs vs peta members.