Has Ray Rice become a sympathetic figure?

You might call this “beating a dead horse” or “piling on” – even if you feel the punishment is deserved.
And the person most supportive of this supposed “sympathetic figure” is actually the victim in this whole sordid affair.

The wife of now-former Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice is coming to his defense – saying, on her Instagram account –

"To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific (sic)," she wrote.

Yes, this is the victim speaking.

But you wonder if her words are hollow – or if there’s genuine concern over his losing all he's worked for.

I know there’s going to be plenty of skepticism over her motivation for saying what she did.

Namely she may be concerned her husband won’t be able to bring in the kind of money he’d been accustomed to - and she won't be able to live as she'd been accustomed.

While you can’t take any of that out of the picture – is the coverage overblown making the football star a “martyr?”

Or is it justifiable outrage? One look at the video will probably wipe away all doubt that it’s more the former.

But since "everyone and his brother" have weighed in on the controversy, including the Governor and the President – one gets the feeling that Rice comes off as the poster boy for domestic violence.

Fact is, he’s not the first, and unfortunately won’t be the last – but if there’s any good that comes out of this episode – it’s to bring light to the fact that one in four women will experience domestic violence in their life with an estimated 1.3 million women becoming victims of a physical assault from her partner each year.

Sad but true.

And to those one in four, plus many others – Ray Rice is not the one you’d feel sorry for.

But should he be the face of domestic violence? And do you feel that with all the media attention focused on he and his wife – does Ray Rice become a sympathetic figure?