After a mad dash across the finish line for the Lame-Duck Congress, President Obama managed to pass some legislation that wasn't actually part of the GOP's grand scheme of permanently screwing over the poor. He passed DADT repeal that will finally allow openly gay Americans to serve their country in uniform, and he agreed to rollback restrictive Wilderness legislation put in place by his predecessor that will allow for the protection of millions of acres of wilderness that now won't get stained with the taint of 'Big Oil'.
All good in the 'hood, right? Well, no. Not exactly.
Apparently unable to go a week without pissing off one section of his base or another (this week it's the animal-lovers that get the shaft), the President got on the phone and congratulated the multi-millionaire owner of the NFL Philadelphia Eagles for giving another multi-millionaire a second chance to make shitloads of money after he got out of the joint. Ordinarily Liberals and Progressives are all about the 'rehabilitation' concept. We are normally all 'compassion' and 'redemption' when it comes to crimes and how you ought to treat non-hardened criminals after they've done their time. But in this case Obama has unwittingly stuck both feet in the brown-and-smelly and really fired up a shit-storm of outrage on the interwebs.
For those of you that don't know what I am on about I am of course talking about convicted felon, and NFL quarterback, Michael Vick. He plead guilty to a series of felonies a few years ago, said he was sorry (without specifying what he was actually sorry for, his crimes or the fact that he got caught) put on his orange jumpsuit and then went to the Big House to did his time. Now fast-forward a few years and, after the NFL rescinded their farcical "ban" on him (with his stats there was no way wasn't going to be allowed back) he's now the starting QB for the red-hot Philadelphia Eagles.
But here's where it gets problematic for Obama. This wasn't your typical crime. This wasn't a case of some guy that got pinched for doing something stupid or rash. This wasn't a case of a guy being thrown in the slammer for too many unpaid parking tickets. This is a case where "he paid his debt to society" does not apply. Not even remotely. Michael Vick was a key part of a vicious, cruel and inhumane dog-fighting ring, and he was personally responsible for the deaths of at least seven of his dogs either by drowning or strangulation. I won't show you the "after" pictures of his dogs because they are revolting, and unbelievably upsetting, but suffice it to say that they are enough to move many a peace-loving liberal to suggest that the only way that Michael Vick will have truly "paid his debt" is when he steps into a cage full of those very same dogs wearing nothing more than a suit made of bacon.
I am one of those liberals.
Michael Vick is a superbly gifted athlete no doubt, and in this culture that means he's pretty much forgiven if he shows enough 'remorse' and his crime wasn't murder or being gay, but I still can't square the circle enough to get past the vicious evil this man was a part of purely for his profit and pleasure... The bigger shame is that the President apparently didn't see that as a problem either.
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