Byrd Dogging Mike Vick

Good thing for Ron Mexico, er, Mike Vick that Senator Robert Byrd is not the NFL Commissioner. Here’s the story from Washingtonpost.com’s intrepid congressional reporter (and Eagles’ fan) Paul Kane:

 

In a floor speech Thursday, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) lashed out, indirectly, at Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who was recently charged with running a dog-fighting ring in Virginia. The speech might have seemed unusually apocalyptic to those who don't know how much the octogenarian senator loves dogs (view the video here).

In biblical terms, Byrd -- wearing a navy-blue tie spotted with dog images -- attacked animal cruelty in ways that only he can.

"It is a brutal, sadistic event motivated by barbarism of the worst sort and cruelty of the worst, worst, worst, sadistic kind," Byrd said in a 24-minute address on the matter. "One is left wondering: Who are the real animals? Who are the real animals, who are the real animals -- the creatures inside the ring or the creatures outside the ring?"

Byrd did not specifically address the charges against Vick, a graduate of Virginia Tech, a rival of the West Virginia University Mountaineers, but attacked the nature of Vick's alleged crime in soaring rhetoric usually reserved for war speeches or Supreme Court confirmation battles: "The training of these poor creatures -- weigh those words -- the training of these poor creatures -- weigh them -- the training of these poor creatures to turn themselves into fighting machines is simply barbaric. Barbaric! Barbaric! Barbaric! Let that word resound from hill to hill and from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley across this broad land. Barbaric, barbaric!"