I don’t normally read HuffingtonPost.com, but it’s common courtesy that when they namecheck you about something you wrote, you do them the courtesy of seeing what else is on their site.
Today that happens to be an op-ed by actor Alec Baldwin about Michael Vick, fresh out of jail for dogfighting and on his way back to the NFL.
Since Baldwin has been known to stump for PETA and pals in the past, I expected the article to be a condemnation of restoring the disgraced quarterback to his public platform. So please forgive the double take:
What Vick did is, obviously, senseless and reprehensible. But I believe Vick, as a wealthy and talented athletic superstar who performs his job out in the open before crowds of amped-up and highly opinionated fans, suffers an unfair disadvantage as compared to, say, the heads of a meatpacking plant or the directors of a medical research lab where animals are suffering the cruelest imaginable abuses behind walls and doors that remove them from our sight and, therefore, judgments. Vick did horrific things and he deserved to be punished. He served his time and now I wonder what good does it do to exile him in shame and not let him show his example of how one can be rehabilitated after that kind of behavior. If Vick returns to his true form as an NFL pro, that platform can mean real progress for the animal rights movement.
What the eff? Why is Michael Vick suddenly untouchable? Did he not kill at least eight dogs, and train at least 66 more for the ring? Sure, he might be sorry that he went to jail and all, but why in the world is Alec Baldwin trying to re-establish Vick’s credibility as a role model?
I know it has to be that PETA wants him for themselves. (And that Vick’s track record is small potatoes compared to the dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly.) But color me surprised that they’re willing to sell what remains of their souls to get him.
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Alec looks like he needs to put the pork chop down for a minute.
Okay. So the heads of a meat packing plant that provide food for people, and the directors of a medical research lab that provide medicines for people, say treatments for Diabetes, like the one that lady from your own organization uses are bad. But some guy, some huge scary, black football player that can stomp on your head, and that you might actually run into at a nightclub, or party should be forgiven. Alec’s metabolism might be slowing, but his survival instincts still seem sharp.
Everyone knows that Alec Baldwin loves animals more than people. Didn’t he use to treat a little pig like she was his own child?
Is that what counts as rehabilitation nowadays? Getting punished and then trying to keep out of jail afterwards? We don’t know if he cares about animal welfare now or not! He just doesn’t want to eat prison food again.
But hey, can’t expect clear thinking from PeTA I guess.
I occasionally like Alec Baldwin but since I don’t watch football I have to say that I don’t have a dog in this fight.
look.. i’m all for people not being ‘hounded’ (ouch!) after serving their time BUT this guy set a live puppy on fire and kicked it around the yard with his pals for fun. people with a mindset like that become serial killers, not role models.
did anyone watch 60 minutes last night? michael didn’t even seem to know WTF he was talking about. he ran that dogfighting ring for 6 years and if he wasn’t caught, he’d still be doin it. mark my words. and how he killed the dogs who didn’t want to fight (electrocuted, shot, drowned) makes me sick.
A blogger I know put out the following advice:
Let Vick make his money by playing football. And the first time he loses, the coach can go out onto the field, pull out a gun, and blow Vick’s brains out.
Hey, if it’s good enough for the dogs…
DAve, I like the way you think. He did not think twice about hurting dogs, they were just for “fun” and “sport”. Well, same goes for Vick. He makes millions playing a sport. Why not eletrocute him everytime he fumbles?
Oh yes AAW! A quick shot to the head is too good for Vick. Make him cower in fear and pain like those dogs did.
better yet, hang jumper cables to his testicles. I bet he will play his heart out and quit whining.
Oh California Dave I LOVE your idea! Let Vick play football and the first time he screwes up shoot him, electrocute him or (this is what I want) tie him to a stake in the 95 degree weather down in GA! (that’s where he was doing all this correct?) No water, no shade. Make sure it’s a super humid day as well. ElPolako please tell me that’s not true about the puppy. Id be 1/2 ass tempted to show up at one of Vicks games with a poster that read something like “You loose this game, we drown your sorry ass”
Good points everyone.
In my understanding, Vick also personally tortured the dogs that did not win. Many of the dogs found buried were assessed to be tortured before death. That is not a “mistake”, as he put it, it was a conscious decision to act cruelly toward a living creature for a sustained period of time. Doing it more than once means that you enjoyed it. And wasn’t half of his “sentence” filled at home in his mansion? So some people may not feel that he served a sentence at all. Having said that, I would have thought that Alec’s animal loving puppy saving ex would have had something to say about this rather than him.
If the NFL wants to give Vick his job back, so be it. Let the fans decide. And they will.
Katie,
You are so right. He seemed to have NO idea WTF he was talking about. It was as if what all those handlers and prepers told him to say got all jumbled in his little brain. And it came out FAKE and CONFUSED.
And as for Mr. Baldwin: Shut Up.
I love violence and torture against any helpless thing I can get my hands on!!!
Screw PETA, screw political correctness, when Sarah Palin takes office in 2012 she’ll finally put an end to all that crap!
Kill and torture everything!
Kill, kill, kill!!!
From Alec’s HuffPo editorial:
Apparently, Vick is even easier to target as a Sugar Daddy…
I’m with Typical American Sicko. Although it’d be my guess she or he can’t vote in the US not because it’s European but because election day’s on a Tuesday, and “Cage Hose Out” day is always on a Thursday.
Mr. Baldwin will have to pardon me if I can’t quite equate saving millions of lives through medical research with torturing and killing dogs that didn’t win their fights.
jack – yeah it was almost embarrassing! i ALMOST felt bad for him. his dead-behind-the-eyes expressions gave it away too. and jumbled is the perfect word for what was going on in his brain too, lol!
El Polacko, I totally agree with you. People who are willing to inflict totally useless and cruel harm to animals (so that goes beyond chopping them up for food) must have serious issues. I would be scared to be around that person. Violence is stupid anyway, but it’s completely different if you punch a person that has insulted you or punched you first, as opposed to setting a random dog on fire.