Only a delay could make a convicted dogfighter seem more sincere than the U.S. Attorney General.

Michael Vick, the disgraced Atlanta Falcons quarterback, stood behind a dais Monday and took responsibility for his abhorrent behavior: financing organized dogfighting, and participating in and condoning animal slaughter. Alberto Gonzales, the disgraced attorney general, also stood behind a lecturn, but to announce his resignation, months after it became a political necessity.

Vick and Gonzales are sadly alike. In seeming splitscreen appearances on television newscasts Monday, they appeared as men abandoned by their constituency. For Vick, it was his co-defendants, a rogue’s gallery of guilty dogfighters who turned tail on their benefactor.

Gonzales was equally alone, left to the snarls and slashes of more vicious predators than abused American Staffordshire Terriers – politicians and the press, who tore into Gonzales’ hide to expose the partisan undercoat he was long suspected of wearing. President Bush, in remarks about Gonzales, said it was sad to see somebody so talented dragged through the mud for “political purposes.”

America now has two fallen stars whose transgressions were so serious their support system evaporated. Vick’s employers, the National Football League and his team, have exiled him, and his Falcon teammates have fled from him. Gonzales’ employer, the people of the United States, have lost faith in him, and his Republican supporters on Capitol Hill have distanced themselves as well.

And as representatives of minority communities, Vick and Gonzales were role models: Vick, a star playing a position historically bestowed on whites, and Gonzales, the highest-ranking Latino in the history of the presidential Cabinet. These men were trailblazers in their fields

But they were tripped by the oldest of obstacles: forgetting that with great power comes greater responsibility. Vick, the noted athlete, failed to heed warnings against entanglement with illicit activity. Gonzales, the sharp legal mind, failed to realize attorney generals are responsible to more than just the administration that hires them.

Among these similarities, though, one key difference is striking: Vick’s swift ownership of his crimes, versus Gonzales’ protracted defenses of his actions. Vick, amazingly, emerges from this scandal with some shred of credibility. His copious talents, coupled with his public apologies and regrets, should ensure his career is far from over. Somebody in the competitive NFL will give him a second chance.

Gonzales appears to have no such opportunities on the horizon. Though just as talented, his delays and distortions have left him untrusted and, unlike Vick, Gonzales can never regain what he’s lost.