Eagles Impress Animal Lovers? Not this one.

From NBC Philadelphia:

Private, spirited, cordial and candid. That’s how devout animal lovers described their two-hour meeting Monday night with Eagles management.

“I thought it was a good first step in making the best of what we all think is kind of a horrific starting situation,” said Rich Britton, with Chester County’s SPCA.

The team extended the invites, reaching out to representatives of the area’s animal welfare groups, one week after signing dogfighting felonMichael Vick. Vick was not at the meeting (since he’s not part of the management team) but Eagles President Joe Banner was and that seemed to buy a lot of goodwill.

“I have to give the Eagles high marks, that Mr. Banner and Ms. Crawley were prepared to sit there as long as they did,” said District Attorney Lynne Abraham. She was invited by the team to lend a “prosecutor’s perspective” to the discussion.

You know what? Color me unimpressed. The only “good first step” that these morons can possibly make is when they start the firing process.

All the good PR, blah blah ‘donate to charity’ crap in the world will not get them off the hook for hiring a man who tortured animals to death, simply because he can toss a piece of pigskin.

As if we ever, ever needed more proof that pro sports only cares about the money, and not even the fans.

The best summation, for me, comes from BadRap:

For those who are still not aware, Michael Vick on the other hand is the guy who not only fought dogs, but threw family pets into the pit for fun, and laughed while they were suffering “major injury.” He’s the guy who killed dogs in a variety of ways – one last time: hanging, drowning, shooting, repeatedly slamming their head and spine into the ground until dead, and electrocuting with jumper cables attached to their ears before being thrown into his pool. So no, not even a regular kind of dog-fighter, but an over-the-top, especially sadistic kind of man.

The 60 minutes interview did not show a man healed, it showed a man that could still not face his own demons, much as he tried to make it appear that he had. All but once he referred to the dogs as animals, because hey, they’re just animals right?

Several times he spoke of what he let happen to the animals … because these thing just happened and hey, shit happens right? And in reference to losing his money, the one and only time he finally referred to killin,’ and dogs as dogs, (due to Jim Brown’s prodding) he spoke in the third person: “Why would a guy making thirty million and then on the flip side killin’ dogs or doin’ the wrong things…they don’t deserve it.”They.

Now, according to Wayne Pacelle of HSUS, Michael Vick is The Man Who Needs No Introduction when it comes time for him to speak to youth about the evils of dogfighting. Apparently the kids in Chicago were on the edge of their seats while watching their hero. Now was that because they were so excited about learning to not fight their animals, or because of Vick’s celebrity status? These are kids from the ghetto who have literally nothing to lose who learned that Vick, the dogfighter, who hadeverything to lose and seemingly lost it all, is now once again a millionaire who’s back in the game.

Just what have these kids learned?

Another question – what has Philadelphia learned? Apparently, it’s that offering ‘shut up’ money to animal welfare groups is a good way to clean up their tarnished image, and make all this bad press go away.

Will I blame the animal welfare groups for taking the money? I don’t know. I don’t know if I like the mental image I get of them taking big piles of cash that are stained with the blood of all those dogs. I don’t know if I can shake that image.  BadRap, who are better people than I am, and have worlds more right to comment on this situation, think that shelters should take the money and run, and get some good out of this whole thing. They’re probably right.

For me, though, there’s only acceptable outcome for this whole situation – fire the bastard. Well, that or tie him to a battery and throw him into a deep, deep pool with very slick sides. Some crimes, some evils, perhaps even some people are just not forgivable.