The Philadelphia Eagles Disgrace Itself

The guys who run the Eagles pro-football team have just come out with the biggest load of baloney to defend their decision to sign ex-con, animal abuser Michael Vick as an Eagles quarterback. As a matter of fact, the NFL mavens should never have lifted Vick’s suspension, which allowed him to get back into pro-football. Eagles head coach Andy Reid says Vick deserves a second chance. That is a silly and spurious argument. When convicts have served their sentences they do deserve to come back into society and they do deserve to lead their lives as rehabilitated persons. But society also deserves to put limits on how it allows ex-cons to make a living and how it allows certain ex-cons back into its embrace. Convicted bank robbers do not deserve to be hired by banks when they come out of jail; parents who have been convicted of abusing their children do not deserve to once again live with their children; priests who have been convicted of molesting children do not deserve to work with children, and a convicted Enron executive does not deserve to make millions again as a corporate mogul. The above examples are only a few instances of wisdom overriding the second-chance adage. And trotting out second-chance piety about ex-con animal abuser Michael Vick is specious and hollow. Michael Vick lost his right (or, he should have lost his right) to play professional football when he dishonored the game by getting involved in a dogfighting ring. Dogfighting is so low and reprehensible that participants can be jailed for engaging in the offense, as Vick was. If the NFL chose to allow Vick to get back in the game, that is a bad decision by the NFL. But for the Eagles management to then compound that bad decision and have so little moral fiber as to allow Coach Andy Reid to hire Vick is beyond low and reprehensible. The Eagles hiring of Michael Vick is depraved, repugnant and vile.