AMERICA AT LARGE:NOW MICHAEL Vick wants a puppy for Christmas. "I think it would be a big step for me in the rehabilitation process," he says.

Yeah, right.

I was reminded of an exchange in a Boston saloon years ago when someone tried to borrow a pen from my friend Walter the Paperhanger.

“Sorry,” replied Walter, who had recently done a stretch for forgery. “Under the terms of my probation I’m not allowed to own one.”

Christmas Eve traditionally serves as the occasion for a raft of presidential pardons in which the records of various (mostly) white-collar criminals are expunged by the generosity of the man in of the White House.

In the same holiday spirit, broadcasters working for NFL games already appear to have granted a blanket amnesty to Vick, Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre, a trio of quarterbacks whose reputations appeared just a few short months ago to have been consigned to permanent disgrace.

A few touchdown passes will do that.

Vick, then of the Atlanta Falcons, served 19 months of a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges after he was indicted for operating a dog-fighting ring involving multiple instances of animal cruelty, including the strangulation and/or electrocution of underperforming canines.

Suspended by the NFL, he missed all of the 2007 and ’08 seasons while he was on ice, but was allowed to sign last year with the Philadelphia Eagles, for whom he performed in a back-up role.

Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault on a college-age woman last March. The local authorities ultimately decided not to prosecute (primarily because that would have resulted in effectively putting the victim on trial), and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell found the case against the Pittsburgh player compelling enough to suspend him for the first six games of the 2010 season. The ban, for violating the league’s personal-conduct policy, was later reduced to four games, and Big Ben was back in uniform by mid-October.

Favre’s iconic status was threatened earlier this season when it was revealed he was under investigation by the NFL for sexual harassment charges of three women while with the New York Jets in 2008. Two of the complaints came from massage therapists employed by the team, while a third woman, an in-house sideline reporter named Jen Sterger, claimed the 41-year-old had engaged in systematic harassment that included suggestive phone messages and texting her graphic photos, allegedly of his anatomy. The league promised a thorough investigation, the results of which have yet to be released.

Unexpectedly thrust into the starting role by an injury to Kevin Kolb, Vick has responded with what may be his most productive season. In last Sunday’s pivotal game for divisional supremacy against the New York Giants, Vick almost single-handedly rallied his team from a 31-10 deficit with eight minutes left on the clock to a 38-31 win that virtually clinched the NFC East title. Named the NFC offensive player of the week for the third time in seven weeks, with 2,755 passing yards, 20 TD passes and a league-leading 103.6 quarterback rating, Vick is being touted as a serious contender for the league’s most valuable player award.

Roethlisberger has led the Steelers to a 10-4 record that has them tied for the divisional lead, despite a series of injuries that include a broken metatarsal and a broken nose.

What is almost certainly Favre’s final NFL season has been bittersweet, accompanied by the almost wholesale collapse of the Vikings, a team that came within a missed field goal of playing in last year’s Super Bowl. Battered at every turn, Favre’s NFL-record consecutive games-started streak came to an end two weeks ago when, having suffered a separated shoulder, he was declared inactive for a Monday Night game against the Giants.

Although it had been widely assumed Favre’s career was over, he miraculously recovered and initiated a new streak this past Monday, throwing a touchdown pass on the Vikings’ first possession before going down again, this time to a concussion that probably will end his season.

Interviewed by NBC's Bob Costas a night earlier, Goodell promised his investigation of the Favre-Sterger affair would be wrapped up by the conclusion of the regular season, which is January 2nd. That the quarterback may not face a trip to the woodshed after all was suggested when the New York Daily Newsreported that a meeting between Sterger and the commissioner "became heated" after it became clear to her that Favre was unlikely to be disciplined by the league. (Stay tuned.)

At the same time, it was comforting to know that at least one network hadn’t buried the scandal altogether, which has pretty much been the case with Vick and Roethlisberger, whose 2010 performances have so obscured their recent histories that the closest thing you’ll hear to an acknowledgement is an oblique reference to their “maturity” or praise for them having “turned their lives around”.

Just a few weeks ago a New York Timessportswriter trailed Vick around at one of his (court-ordered) appearances before schoolchildren, and recorded his plaintive regret at having to refuse his young daughters' request for a pet dog.

If Ben Roethlisberger wants to date young women again, that’s fine with me, as long as it’s not my daughter. It’s okay with me if Brett Favre uses a mobile phone, though it should probably be with proper supervision.

But a dog for Michael Vick is where I draw the line. And please spare me that stuff about it being “a step in his rehabilitation”. Put it this way; before the authorities swooped on his property to find those dozens of wretched animals in various states of starvation and deprivation, Michael Vick jerseys were the single hottest-selling item in the entire inventory of NFL Properties. Vick at the time made millions a year from his off-field endorsements.

Following his arrest and imprisonment, every single one of his sponsors had dropped him.

A few weeks ago Vick taped a commercial for a New Jersey automobile dealership. It was his first paid endorsement since his downfall, but wouldn’t a portrait of Michael Vick cuddling a cocker spaniel do wonders for his newly sanitised image? When Vick speaks wistfully of “the rehabilitation process”, isn’t the rehabilitation of his career as a television pitchman what we’re really talking about?