That’s what Paul Zeise said about Michael Vick, with regards to the recent dogfighting scandal:

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Paul Zeise made the comments Sunday night on the “Sports Showdown” show on KDKA-TV, a CBS affiliate. He was disagreeing with another panelist who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend Vick for the rest of the season because he was indicted on federal dogfighting charges July 17.

“It’s really a sad day in this country when somehow … Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman if you look at the outcry of what happened,” Zeise said. “Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for four games and he’d be back on the field. But because this has become a political issue, all of a sudden the commissioner has lost his stomach for it.”

Zeise later apologized for the comments, and KDKA said he wouldn’t be invited back as a panelist on the show. Zeise’s primary employer, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, was quick to call his statements “insensitive and offensive”, and to point out that they “do not represent the view of the Post-Gazette”.

I agree that there is an extremely offensive air to his comments, but it is not Zeise who is giving the offense here.

When other major sports figures have been accused of rape, it might have made a pretty big splash on the news (see: Kobe Bryant), but how many of them were suspended for even a handful of games — before they were even brought to trial?

If Zeise had instead worded his comment as, “It’s a really sad thing in this country that somehow Michael Vick would get less punishment if he had been accused of rape than if he were accused of this,” would there have been an outcry? I’m all for holding our prominent athletes to a high standard of behavior, especially given the fact that many children still look up to these athletes as role models, and I think it’s disgusting that we treat cruel treatment of animals as though it’s orders of magnitude worse than rape.

Of course, I’m assuming that the outcry here is that Zeise used the phrase “better off raping a woman”, which, out of context, does sound bad. Given the context, though, the comment makes sense — Zeise is not praising or supporting the fact that (being accused of) raping a woman would have gotten Vick less of a punishment from the NFL (and likely less press); he is saying that it is a “sad day” because of that fact. It’s altogether possible that all of the outcry is from PETA-type groups who think that it’s appalling that Zeise is saying that the crime of abusing and murdering dogs should be seen as a lesser crime than that of raping a woman. If it is these groups causing the outrage, then they should be ashamed of themselves.