Tweaking Animal Rights Activists Is a Dirty Job

One of the very first articles we ever published on HumaneWatch was titled “I Dare You to Disagree with Mike Rowe.”

The "Dirty Jobs" host and Ford pitch man is among the most trusted macho-spokes-dudes in America. And he has little patience for Wayne Pacelle and the Humane Society of the United States. Rowe is well-versed on (and, of course, has hands-on experience with) animal welfare issues, and he has become something of a champion to farmers whose way of life is routinely threatened by HSUS and other animal rights groups.

If you’ve seen "Dirty Jobs" recently, you might recall the show in which Rowe helps pollinate date palms and hangs out with sharpshooters. In one of that episode’s opening sequences, he reads a piece of his viewer mail.

It’s a nasty, barbed-tongue of a letter from a fan named “Wayne P.”

Real or not, the letter is a brilliant piece of theatre—not unlike the carefully screened and sanitized blog “comments” that Wayne Pacelle’s people choose to share. (Note: All the comments you read on this blog and on Facebook are real, unscripted, and unsolicited.)

Our favorite moment is Rowe’s chuckle when he reaches the end of the letter, as though he’s genuinely amused that the president of the Humane Society of the United States would make such a weak attempt to be clever. Or funny. Or whatever Pacelle is trying to be when his words drip with acid.

Dirty Jobs airs tonight (and most Tuesdays) at 9pm Eastern/Pacific on the Discovery Channel.

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