See 55.
999 out of a thousand is overstating it, I think. It was a bad tackle. I think Freedom Moose's way of stating it as 'maybe a yellow card and a half' is a good one actually. Many referees may have given him a yellow, and he would have been a touch lucky. This one gave a red and he can maybe consider himself a touch unlucky.
At the end of the day, if you launch yourself into a tackle like that with both your feet of the ground, in a situation where the referee has already shown a willingness to get his cards out, you're basically asking for trouble.
I think it's a bit too much of a coincidence that the red card came out then the way it did, when it did, not more than a few minutes after the Italian red. If that's not enough to convince, look at Pope's second yellow seconds into the second half. At best, this referee thought that a billion and a half people were tuning in to watch him work. At worst, he was trying to influence the outcome of the game.