On Tap

Michael Vick is a scoundrel. That much is abundantly clear following his sentencing on Monday for crimes related to organizing and running a dogfighting ring in southside Virginia. He deserves every minute of the sentence he’ll be serving in a federal correctional facility over the next two years.

And if stupidity were a crime, Vick would be going up the river for life.

After negotiating a plea bargain with federal prosecutors in the face of incriminating testimony from two of his co-conspirators, Vick only had to tell the truth, cooperate with the FBI and prosecutors, and stay out of trouble.

Instead, Vick got busted smoking dope and continued to lie to the authorities, even while hooked up to an FBI polygraph machine. Even worse, an FBI source told ESPN that Vick had actively mislead agents despite his agreement to help them break up other dogfighting rings.

But even as Vick was boarding the prison van to return to jail, his friends and Falcon teammates were starting to show their true colors with public expressions of support for the incarcerated quarterback.

Worse, by this morning, some in the media were wondering whether the sentence was too harsh or if Vick was being treated unfairly because of his celebrity. Some critics of the sentence were even pointing to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution calculation that Vick would incur financial losses totaling $142 million.

It’s as though in the intervening hours they had somehow forgotten Vick’s admission that he committed inhumane acts of cruelty and then spent months lying about it to the authorities, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Vick is a criminal, and he should be treated as such. Being a criminal doesn’t make him an especially marketable commodity any more, so as a result, he’s forfeiting his football and endorsement income.

The explanation is simple, and has nothing to do with Vick’s celebrity: Michael Vick broke the law. He behaved abominably. And he brought the consequences on himself.

Some additional reads:

• An impeccable column by ESPN legal expect Lester Munson.
• A column from Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon, titled appropriately, “The Sentence Reflects the Lies.”
• My own previous thoughts on Michael Vick here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at December 12, 2007 - 7:35 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.