Apparently Michael Vick is good to go, to pass through security with his water bottle with the hidden container and without us questioning his behavior. What were we thinking? What happened to innocent until cleared by forensic evidence?

Vick was the subject of much discussion, not the least of which was whether Atlanta should launch the super star who has yet to be super but is definitely a star times 100 contractual millions. Vick’s curious behavior (it must have been a handcrafted water bottle he did not want to part with) was writ large in headlines, on sports talk radio, and in Web forums.

But the guy’s innocent. So what happened? A couple of theories: The behavior was a good fit — based on Vick’s previous brushes with anti-socialiability, carrying a bit of weed didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
Except for the little issue that flipping off the crowd or being a bad actor on MySpace isn’t illegal. Smuggling drugs is.
We also used the family connection, Vick’s younger brother Marcus was the one-time poster child for all that is wrong with college football. Marcus had stayed remarkably clean since he brandished a weapon, and, according to the young lady in question, did some bad things with a girl not the right age.
But then Michael isn’t Marcus. Is he?

Bottom line is that the truth, the legal facts, exonerate Vick. The task now is to make it fit the conclusion we jumped to. I’ve never been a Vick fan, his style of play, while effective and surely exciting, doesn’t work for the Falcons. Vince Young may still make it work in the NFL as he did at Texas. And even though Vick can throw a rope 60 yards, the win column of his team is woefully underrated. That’s not all him, but some of it is.

Read it: no charges. How the world continues to see the star remains to be seen. Meanwhile, memo to Vick: You can’t take water bottles on planes, with or without the secret compartment.