How does one defend Vick?

Last night I was watching the Fair and Balanced network's version of point/counterpoint and they had a Professor Jeffrey Standen of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon discuss his defense of Michael Vick's dog fighting. So I immediately went to his blog at thesportslawprofessor.blogspot.com to see what it takes to be invited on the Hannity and Combs show to discuss such innane topics as Vick and his homies conducting dog fights.

To my amazement Professor Standen wrote the post prior to Vick pleading guilty, so much of the post is irrelevent today, but Standen "really" did not defend Vick for his actions. He just demoted the action of dog fighting to a "Boys will be boys" fiasco.

Professor Standen actually tried to equate dog fighting with cock-fighting, bullfighting and bird hunting as well as cage fighting. He contended that when the facts came out, the truth will be all about nothing. That what Vick did was not illegal and his cohorts (homies) were bribed by the prosecutors to turn on their money man, Vick. Vick was simply involved in nothing more then seedy behavoir. He's just a bad boy, nothing more.

Why should Vick lose his career over the rest of us being so prudish? He also nodded toward Kobe Bryant for his climb back to icon status after the accussations of rape. You know as soon as the legal system and the applied pressure is done with the story it always comes out that there was really nothing to it.

Professor Standen appeared to be a nice enough sort and since many of my attorney friends here in Salem attended college at Willamette it might turn out that Standen and I have mutual friends. But his interview on Hannity and Combs botherd me on several levels aside from Combs not letting him speak or clarify himself, he also seem to think there should be some tolerance in these types of perdicaments the athletes find themselves in.

First and foremost does such a terrible behavior, as dog fighting, have to be illegal before you are disgusted with it? To think a man that has many young children looking up at him and fantasizing of being Michael Vick on the gridiron, would involve himself of such barbaric behavoir. To think he could keep a smug smile on his face as he walked past a horde of cameras knowing darn good and well it was all true. To think he was never outwardly bothered about his actions, amazes me of what type of human being Vick must really be. What kind of man could be like this? A sick one if you ask me.

Secondly, if Vick is involved in an illegal gambling circuit, that is all that is needed to remove him from professional sports. The gambling alone puts Vick in a position to taint the game of professional football where its paying customers deserve much better. We football fans that spend "our" dollars on the entertainment, have a right to be disgusted, when we find out one of those we are filling the pockets with millions of dollars is a sick, ill-adjusted excuse of a human being. We also have the right to express our disgust to the NFL and demand they either put up with our discontent for keeping the guy around or get rid of him.

I am not saying he participated in gambling on football but to put himself in the arena of betting on dog fighting only seperates him from being influenced by outside interests by a micro-thin veneer of false-intigrity.

So Professor, what Vick did might equate to bullfighting or cage fighting in many peoples minds but it is more disgusting then eating your neighbor's cat. Of which I am sure may not be illegal either but might get your butt ran out of the neighborhood.

Lastly, how does a blog that only gets maybe 5 hits per week get the author on Hannity and Combs?