I was traveling home from the New York blizzard and Philly non-blizzard Wednesday when MDS posted a blurb regarding Tucker Carlson’s outlandish comments regarding Eagles quarterback Mike Vick.
“I’m a Christian, I’ve made mistakes myself, I believe fervently in second chances,” Carlson said on FOX News Channel. “But Michael Vick killed dogs, and he did in a heartless and cruel way. And I think, personally, he should’ve been executed for that.”
The comments had their desired effect, in our view. Carlson’s once-rising media star has faded dramatically, beginning when he jumped from CNN to MSNBC and thereafter plunged into oblivion. Really, what has Carlson said or done to generate any real buzz since Jon Stewart called him a “dick” on the air?
But now Tucker Carlson is relevant again. Heck, he’s the first chronic bow-tie wearer to trend on Twitter.
Sure, he’s also now viewed by many as a complete and total nut job. In his line of work, however, it’s better to be viewed as a complete and total nut job and to be employed than to be regarded as reasonable while maintaining a steady diet of government cheese.
As to Vick, he was fortunate that the state-level prosecution for killing dogs was bungled; Surry County, Virginia prosecutor Gerald Poindexter somehow couldn’t get a grand jury to indict Vick on charges of killing dogs even though Vick admitted to killing dogs in conjunction with his guilty plea on federal charges. A zealous and competent prosecutor would have obtained an indictment and a conviction and would have pushed for an additional sentence over and above the time served at Leavenworth.
In theory, Vick could still be serving time right now in Virginia.
But the mere suggestion of taking human life for cruelty to non-human life is, in our view, far more inhumane than anything Vick ever did. Though Carlson may not lose his job for his remarks, we can’t imagine that there are enough people who agree with those views to allow Carlson to sustain whatever media career he currently has left.