Lawrence O'Donnell Compares Killing Dogs With Catching Fish

There have been some celebrities defending the dog killings by Michael Vick. However, none of the defenses of Vick are as bizarre as those put forward by Lawrence O'Donnell in his Huffington Post blog, What's Wrong with Killing Dogs?

What's wrong with what Michael Vick did? I have no inclination to do what he did with dogs, but I have no comprehension of what all the fuss is about. Most people who are upset about killing dogs or letting them attack each other have at some point in their lives caught a fish, which is as extreme a form of murderous torture of an animal as I can imagine.

Huh? Didn't O'Donnell ever hear of catch and release? It is done all the time. A fisherman catches a fish and then releases it so it can be caught over and over again. No "murderous torture" of an animal here since the released fish go back to calmly swimming in their watery environs again. From "murderous torture" of fish, O'Donnell goes on to the absurd flesh eating argument in defense of Vick:

Not only have most of them caught a fish, they have actually eaten many more of them than they've caught. Which is weirder, killing an animal or eating its dead flesh? Most of us have never eaten dog meat, but in some countries it is a delicacy. Is there something evil going on in those countries? Are they violating the natural order of things? Should we invade them or get the UN to intervene? They are killing and eating dogs for god's sake!!!

Perhaps in the insular Hollywood vegan world eating meat is considered weird. It could also be a failed attempt by the former producer of The West Wing at humor. O'Donnell then invokes natural law:

What is the moral basis -- the natural law, if you will -- that accords special respect and protection to dogs in our written laws? And how does that same natural law allow for fish being clubbed to death on boat decks if they haven't died already from the hook-in-mouth trick we so enjoy pulling on them?

Lawrence, in the course of typing up this blog chronicling your absurdities, I noticed a couple of small insects crawling across my computer monitor. Without a moment of guilty conscience I picked up a paper towel and instantly deprived them of their life force. This is not something I (or most people) could do to a dog. So, yeah, there is a difference depending on the animal. Keep that in mind the next time the bug exterminator pays a visit to your home.

Following these laughable assertions, O'Donnell then compares humane euthanasia of sick pets to electrocuting dogs:

Our reverence for dog life resembles our reverence for human life. Up to a point. It's okay to kill your dog if you think your dog is too sick to go on living much longer or if you just can't afford medical help for your dog. And, don't worry, no legal authority is ever going to ask you to prove that your dog was really sick enough to kill or even sick at all. If you don't have the stomach for killing your dog yourself, you contract with a dog killer -- otherwise known as a veterinarian -- to do the dirty work for you. No federal law against that yet. Our dog reverence is so shot full of loopholes that there is no describable moral order to it at all.

If you think O'Donnell couldn't get any more aburd in his defense of Vick, you would be wrong. He actually suggests that eating hamburgers is just as morally repulsive as torturing dogs to death:

Between bites at McDonald's today there will be a lot of outrage expressed about Michael Vick getting off easy. I won't understand a word of it.

Between bites of a Big Mac today, Lawrence, I will ponder if President Jed Bartlet ever electrocuted his pet dog in The West Wing.