A few hours ago (Sunday evening 2-28) I watched last weeks episode of the Michael Vick Project.  It was sick, and I’m not saying that in a dog lover kind of way, not saying it in what the detractors of this site would claim is a dogs over humans kind of way, not saying it just because I’ve been writing on this site since Michael Vick first started denying that he fought dogs or led a band of merry animal killers.

It was sick because Michael Vick is working to restore himself from his ‘Fall from Grace’ by literally revisiting the scene of the crime and putting hands on the weapons he used to commit the crime.  Oh and he is one of the producers of the TV vehicle broadcast by BET, so he is not only profiting from this sick venture directly, but also indirectly through his sports career. 

This show fully embodied why Michael Vick should not be on a reality TV show, and why he should not have a spotlight in the NFL.

Yes he should have a second chance in life and in a career, but not a second chance thrown back into his old life and career, where he damaged not only his own grace, but the real lives of too many real people, oh and he killed dogs too, tortured them, fought them and worse.

Watching this show, you will be struck by many terrible images, each getting worse and worse as the show proceeds.  It starts off in a benign fashion with Michael starting to speak to another group of kids at an extremely troubled high school Germantown High School at the request of the local chapter of the NAACP.  Now, many people have been quick to criticize the Humane Society for using a criminal to be their poster child for stopping the crime, but the NAACP is no better, as they push Michael Vick in front of kids as a role model who made a mistake and learned his lesson 2 months after getting out of prison.

I personally don’t believe in contrition, I don’t think Michael Vick should grovel and beg or anything like that, but I also don’t think that 2 months after he got out of prison he was suddenly qualified to go speak to kids.  For one thing, his public speaking skills are terrible, and I don’t mean bad, or unprofessional, or stiff, etc, they are just plain terrible.  He does ‘sound’ like he is being sincere and that might possibly get through to kids, but in today’s world, kids are completely immersed in an environment where only the best communicators on the planet can actually reach them and then its usually only through music or maybe tv.  To drop a chump straight out of prison in front of them and then listen to him give a speech that belongs in a sixth grade class stumbling through a poorly rehearsed book report like style is not only painful, but definitely not setting a good example.  Much worse, its probably not getting through at all.

Michael Vick, if you want to help kids avoid your mistakes, go take some serious public speaking classes and then practice your public speaking on a less susceptible audience where the stakes aren’t so high.  Don’t rebuild your career on the grace of kids as you step on their heads to get back on top in the NFL.

BUT THAT’S ONLY THE START OF THIS ATTROCITY OF A SHOW

Soon Michael Vick takes us on an SUV ride with his personal assistant (who apparently knew better and tried to get Vick to stop dog fighting, but really, who listens to their secretary?  I’m sure those kids at Germantown High School don’t listen to their secretaries either).  Now, the camera set up in the SUV is just awkward, and I only mention it because in this third show, all production quality is out the window and it only makes the true content that much harder to watch.

Vick is sitting in the back behind his secretary who is driving, with the invisible camera man in the front passenger seat, which all just adds to the presentation of Michael Vick above it all, rich and being chaufered around the Virginia country side on a jaunt to view his old dog killing grounds for the sake of the BET viewing audience.

They arrive at his old house, which no one will buy.  Its been remodeled a bit and you get a sense that Vick doesn’t recognize much of the house at all any more, from its former bachelor pad days.  It was apparently a boys party paradise, gee, I wonder why no family wants to buy it.

Vick eventually walks out back to the Bad Newz Kennels, the real kennels and the upstairs dog fighting ring in the upper floor of a shed/barn where the rug still smells of dog blood according to Vick.  (Tip for home investors looking to flip a Michael Vick property, MAKE SURE YOU REMOVE THE BLOODY CARPET YOU MORONS!)

As Michael Vick ‘remembers’ all of the crimes he used to commit here, you do feel that he is sincere in thinking that he made a mistake, he wishes many times on tape that he had given the injured dogs to some caring family that would adopt them and care for them, instead of beating them to death, electrocuting them, drowning and hanging them etc.

Maybe it was cut out of the show, but he doesn’t really say he wishes he had never fought dogs, something he had done since he was apparently about 7 years old, took a break when he was 12, and then came back to it when he had some money and was drafted after stopping by a barber shop in his old neighborhood to talk to a guy that had a lot of pit bulls, but he didn’t know the guy fought them.

Frankly that part sounded like a lot of bull shit.  I think he knew what he was doing when he went back to fight dogs again, and that is just another example of why I think he could fall off the wagon again, in the show he said, “we fought dogs like people sold drugs”.  And like like drugs, I think he has an addiction for fighting dogs, if not an addiction for blood.

AND THEN IT GOT EVEN UGLIER

So Vick leaves the fighting barn loft area, gingerly stepping down the steps, walks outside and notices a 2 x 6 leaning against a building.  Look there’s the beam we used to hang the dogs, he says.

Then Michael Vick walks over, grabs this wooden beam and holds it up against the two trees where it used to be nailed and describes how they used to hang dogs  there (to kill them).  You can almost visualize him not only hanging but beating and zapping them as if the poor dogs were a small heavy bag.

He walks by cages in and outside of buildings and I’m not saying dogs are like people, but I’ll be damned if the whole thing didn’t look like someone taking a tour of Auschwitz.  Michael Vick’s crimes are a small thing compared to the atrocities committed in concentration camps under the orders of Hitler, or any of the t0o many death camps that have crept into too many societies, militaries, and governments around the world since.  Some of those sick twisted psychos in Hitler’s day and since got their start somewhere and it might have been very similar to Michael Vick’s days working in the minor leagues of dog fighting before getting called up to even more evil someday, hopefully not.

But there was a reason why they did not have Hitler go tour through the concentration camps and talk about the crimes he ordered.  There was a reason why Hitler didn’t walk on the mass graves of his victims and describe what he felt when he had them killed.  Even if Hitler had been alive, and even if he had expressed remorse, a right thinking person would not put him on TV in a show that he produced and have him talk about his crimes so that he could regain ‘grace’ because THAT IS JUST SICK.

Even if a murderer is sorry for what they did, and they want to express that to the victims family, you don’t take them to the scene of the crime, put the murder weapon in their hand, and have them talk through what they did on their own TV show.  BEYOND SICK.

BET is soooo wrong in giving Vick this platform that it is absolutely ridiculous.  The NAACP made a mistake in having Vick speak to those kids in a troubled school, and the Humane Society made a smaller mistake in using Vick as a spokesperson against dog fighting, but BET and their remaining sponsors, which seems to consist largely of Warner Brothers movies, Dell.com, Lysol (which supposedly kills H1N1, can you say false advertising?) and Woolite, which wasn’t used to clean the dog fight blood out of Vick’s carpets have made the biggest mistake of all.  Hell, even the NFL hasn’t screwed the pooch as bad, they gave Michael Vick a boat load of money again and his old job back (no harm no foul, sorry bout your luck Vick, welcome back and sure you can keep your number, please accept a few million as a token of our stupidity).

This show is just sick, the sponsors are crazy, BET is crazy and all of them together are making this world a very nasty and ugly place.  Maybe if their business model fails, they can do some odd jobs for Michael Vick when he launches his next dog fighting ring on BET DEAD DOG SMACK DOWN.

Michael Vick or anyone at BET that still has some heart or soul left, pull the plug on this show.  I don’t know what is worse, the torture of watching it or the terrible crime that is being committed encouraging kids to follow in Michael Vick’s footsteps, footsteps that just went back to the dog fighting ring on BET, broadcast around the world.

Its been a while since we covered this last, but for some of you that are new to the debate, or have forgotten some of the details, or just need a refresher here’s a link to the actual document that Michael Vick agreed to as facts in his plea agreement.

http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/sports/usvick82407sof.html

As he did plea, much of the witness testimony provided in the indictment was not used in a trial. That witness testimony was extremely negative and in many ways much uglier than the perfected statements that Michael Vick provided in the Statement of Facts.

Even with that legal wrangling, we feel that the Statement of Facts provided by Michael Vick are enough on their own to merit his permanent suspension from the NFL under the CBA.

Many people have indicated that Roger Goodell does not have the authority to prevent Michael Vick from playing in the NFL.  After reviewing the CBA (its only a few hundred pages long), it would appear to me that the Commissioner does have this authority based on the CBA’s following sections (at a minimum I suspect there are more)

(view the CBA its about a 3.6 mb pdf file)

See Appendix C Section 15

Note this section states that any NFL player that knowingly associates with gamblers or gambling activity;   . . . .then the Commissioner will have the right, but only after giving Player the opportunity for a hearing at which he may be represented by counsel of his choice, to fine Player in a reasonable amount; to suspend Player for a period certain or indefinitely; and/or to terminate this contract.

Furthermore, the NFL CBA seems to recognize that any player like Michael Vick has the power to damage the NFL if their conduct is not held up to an appropriate standard.

This clause does not link suspension or removal, but as it is part of the contract failure of a player to live up to this clause could make the contract voidable and therefore remove the player from the club or the league.

The CBA provides appendix G which lays out the standard Notice of Termination as follows