Pets and Animals: Re: "God forgive me", the Almighty probably will, for He is reportedly pretty forgiving...

.... after all, He's expected to forgive Michael Vick - or at least intercede (presumably as the God that we're one nation under) to get him a light sentence - for Michael Vick has apparently "... found Jesus, and asked Him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God".*

In the third of a century or so since Watergate, I've seen a lot of convicted criminals among public figures claim on TV to have found Jesus - usually between conviction and sentencing.

Watching Michael Vick's performance, I don't think that my gorge has risen so strongly over anybody playing the Jesus card since back in the 1970s, when I saw the appalling Chuck Colson - President Nixon's convicted henchman who in a way had tried to steal and destroy the Constitution of the United States - snivelling about finding the Lord while being hugged by the creepy Reverend Robert Schuller in the great Glass Cathedral (I almost needed a barf bag)!

If memory serves me correctly, Colson - who since achieved some eminence in the cause of Christian Rightness if not rectitude - got about four months in prison, when he deserved life. It will be interesting to see what onerous a sentence is handed down (or up?) to Mr Vick.

[* I was astonished to see Vick's public statement to this effect on Fox News' 'The O'Reilly Factor' this evening. At least the usually God-fearing Bill O'Reilly indulged in a little televisual humor: as Vick mumbled to the TV cameras about his pre-sentencing epiphany, Fox technologists superimposed a little golden halo around his brow..]