Bad Defense

Today's piece for the Daily Banter takes a look at some of the fallout from the recent NCAA punishment of Penn State -- not the fallout from the sex abuse scandal itself, but the reaction from some of the Penn State faithful to the severe penalties levied against the school and its football program and to the hostility expressed by many against Joe Paterno.

Here's the line that kind of sums up the entire argument made in the column:

"What those who defend Penn State and Joe Paterno against all comers — who look for mitigating circumstances and concoct ridiculous rationalizations for the sins of their idols — don’t seem to understand is that it’s exactly this kind of thinking that allowed Sandusky to get away with what he did for so long."

Read the Rest Here

Picture of the Day

After the death of Joe Paterno earlier this year, political cartoonist Rob Tornoe drew an image of Bear Bryant with his arm around the Penn State coach, welcoming him "home" to heaven.

After the recent results of the Freeh report, this is his follow-up cartoon.

Comment of the Week

In response to the rabidly pro-Penn State tweets posted earlier today:

"As a Penn State graduate, let me assure you that many who go or went there are just as disgusted with this whole mess. The mistake you are making is saying that it is almost cult like. I lived in State College for 7 years and can affirm that the 'We are…Penn State!' crew is a cult and you have to look at them in that way. It’s going to take years to deprogram them from thinking that it wasn’t possible for Paterno to do anything wrong. I would say that they are all still in the first stages of deep denial and that belief in the almighty JoePa is trumping intelligence. Even the devotion I’ve seen in fans of some of the big Florida colleges pales when compared to Penn Staters, though you may get close in Texas. Paterno had been sold as a man of principle and character for so many years throughout Pennsylvania and beyond that it has become an article of faith. Even I first thought 'There’s no way he could have known.' when the story first broke and I really give no fucks for the football program. I quickly got beyond that when the façade was pulled back and the whole stinking mess was exposed. I'm really not trying to make excuses for these kids, but they have been more or less brainwashed since birth. Then again, they may just be assholes.

-- Matt"

Thanks for the comment, Matt. As usual, you've just won a brand new Chrysler Cordoba and you can pick it up at Morty's office.

Tweet(s) of the Day

Yeah, I put poor dumbshit Brady Lucas in there twice, and maybe that's a little unfair, but I couldn't get enough of the fact that he both misspells "stopped" -- and it's not a 140 characters issue -- and of course whines about how this is all the big, bad media's fault. Sorry, kid -- Wolf Blitzer didn't rape a bunch of children while Pete Thamel swept it under the rug. And yeah, big fan of "B-Rock's" self-serving, Chris Brownian plea for everyone to just put it behind them and move on. Do I even need to bring up who's had a bitch of a time moving on in all this? Here's a hint: the kids whose innocence was absolutely shattered by a predatory old man and the friends of his who thought that the reputation of Penn State was more important than stopping a child rapist and rescuing his victims.

By the way, here's an interesting little tidbit: All the TVs at the Penn State student union were abruptly switched away from cable news to a local public access channel just as the results of Louis Freeh's report were about to be read.

Adding: This...


An hour ago he was bitching about the media, now look at him -- all stars in his eyes. Is there any way we can get Tosh to throw an insult this kid's way?

Quote of the Day

"The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized... None of them ever spoke to Sandusky about his conduct. Nothing was done and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity... None of these men took responsible action."

-- Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who headed the internal investigation into the Jerry Sandusky child rape case and the reaction to it by Penn State's administration, issuing his report on the matter

So there you have it. Anyone want to argue anymore? Anyone want to claim that it wasn't an inexcusable cover-up that resulted in child after child being assaulted by a serial rapist? Anybody want to take to the streets in outrage that Joe-Pa got fired?

Freeh says flat-out, without a hint of equivocation or mitigation, that Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, Tim Curley and, yes, Joe Paterno, all exhibited a "total disregard for the safety and welfare" of the young boys Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulted. Forget the death penalty for Penn State's football program, which is practically a lock -- this report now sets in motion the likelihood of not only criminal charges and civil suits, but the possibility, albeit slim, of the complete repeal of Penn State's accreditation.

If nothing else, Spanier, Schultz, and Curley belong in prison for the rest of their lives. As for Paterno -- he got off far too easy. But that statue of him in Happy Valley? That thing needs to be pulled down by a Humvee and a cable and beaten with shoes.

State of Disgrace

Okay, anybody wanna step up and defend these assholes?

CNN: Disturbing E-Mails May Spell More Trouble for Penn State/7.2.12

A related article in the Christian Science Monitor sums up the details:

"Citing email exchanges between senior Penn State officials in 2001, CNN reports an apparent effort to go slowly on what a graduate assistant said he had seen: Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the team locker room shower.

The emails between former university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley, and vice president Gary Schultz, at first suggested contacting the state Department of Welfare, which investigates suspected child abuse.

But a day later, the officials agreed that a more 'humane and a reasonable way to proceed' would be to approach Sandusky (referred to not by name, but as 'the person') with the allegation but not involve state authorities.

'The only downside for us is if message isn't heard and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it, but that can be assessed down the road,' one email said, according to CNN.

Coach Paterno (who was fired for 'failure of leadership' because of the sex scandal and died in January) had said that he reported graduate assistant Mike McQueary’s information to the athletic director, believing that was his only obligation in the case.

But the timing of the officials’ change in plans alluded to in the emails – coming after athletic director Curley had discussed the reported shower incident with Paterno – raises questions about whether the coach was more involved than he said in the decision to proceed in a more 'humane and a reasonable way.'

The fact is, the incident back in 2001 was not acted upon in a way that might have prevented subsequent sexual abuse by Sandusky over the next decade. Nor was there ever an attempt to identify the boy seen in the shower by McQueary, or to check on that boy’s well-being."

I realize that some will see this as an overreaction and the Penn State faithful will consider it outright blasphemy, but the school's football program should probably face the death penalty. While it can be argued that no NCAA bylaws were officially broken, the breakdown in institutional control -- particularly one that arose out of an effort to protect the football program and the school itself -- and the unmitigated tragedy that was allowed to spring from it constitutes a massive violation of the spirit of the rules put in place by the NCAA. There were acts undertaken and not undertaken by almost everyone who knew about what was going on with Sandusky that may not be illegal in the traditional sense, but that doesn't make the attempted cover-up, the gross negligence, the willingness to keep it from those it needed to be relayed to despicably unethical and flat-out wrong.

Make no mistake: The NCAA almost certainly won't kill Penn State football -- but it would be justified if it did.

Back when this story broke last year, I had quite a bit to say about it. What follows was the most comprehensive piece.

"Say It Ain't So, Joe" (Originally Published, 11.9.11)

I was going to avoid this subject simply because there's an odd sort of conflict of interest at play for me -- namely, all of my ex's siblings went to this particular school and their rabid allegiance to it was the subject of quite a bit of back-and-forth between us during my time with their sister. I've never been someone who aligns myself with any group, let alone vigorously, and so I never could understand the almost cult-like devotion and blood-brotherhood ethos with fellow alumni that an alma-mater could inspire. It just didn't make a bit of sense to me and so I often looked at the traditional machinations and proclamations of unwavering faith that went along with it probably much the same way that Mark and Ollie looked at the Mek tribe when they made the decision to live with it and document its alien ways. Although I was probably more of a dick than those guys were -- I admit that.

Bottom line, though: My adopted brothers and sister are truly great people and I certainly wouldn't want to insult them, but strangely that very special brand of steadfast fealty is part of the reason I want to at least throw out a minor comment or two on the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State that just ended the almost mythical career of the school's football coach, Joe Paterno. I won't run down the details of the scandal that has inarguably brought shame to what was going to be the hallowed legacy of Paterno and has consumed the Penn State athletics program from the inside out; those details are sickening, made even more so when you consider that it appears there were those within the program -- Paterno included -- who at least had some idea what was going on with defensive coach Jerry Sandusky and yet didn't lift a finger to truly put a stop to it. Obviously, Paterno isn't charged with a crime and I believe him when he expresses extraordinary remorse for what happened, as well as what he did and didn't do about it. Paterno's cultivated a reputation for being a stand-up guy, so it really is unfortunate that this is the way he's going to go out.

The issue I have, again, is with the view by those who either went to Penn State or just count themselves among the school's many fans that it's an almost infallible institution. Case in point: An article written for USA Today College by a Penn State alum named Emily Grier in which she goes to nearly super-human lengths to express sympathy for the victims of the alleged abuse while defending Penn State as an establishment -- a way of life, even -- that remains largely above reproach. One which has earned the devotion it inspires through a lifetime of good deeds that simply can't be sullied by the actions of a few bad apples.

Except that this runs much deeper than that.

True, at worst it would appear as if the gruesome crimes allegedly perpetrated by Sandusky were indirectly enabled by a handful of people, but those people are undeniably the power structure of Penn State -- not necessarily the heart of the school but certainly the ones who hold the hearts, minds and loyalty of the student body and beyond. Make no mistake, if a systemic cover-up of any kind took place that allowed Jerry Sandusky to rape children, that's not a couple of bad apples -- that's a Catholic Church-level crime. And much like followers of the Catholic Church, the Penn State nation will have to learn to reconcile the fact that the view of their institution has been irreparably tarnished, and with excellent reason. Of course the school has done much good throughout its history and that shouldn't be disregarded, but it can be argued that the church has as well, and yet that allowed it no slack when the details of the behavior of a relative few within its ranks began to come to light. In fact, the presentation of itself as a benign and charitable entity is exactly why its sins are so devastating. Why they feel like such a betrayal to so many.

Joe Paterno is Penn State. He's the face of the school -- its deity. And when you hold someone or something up to idol worship, you blind yourself to the possibility that that person or institution is capable of terrible things. The same as any of us is.

It bothers me because it makes me feel like I was always right in saying that no one deserves sanctification -- no one has earned it and no one, no matter how much you believe in him or her, is beyond the potential to let you down. I wish someone would prove me wrong about this, but that never seems to happen. The good almost always succumb. Evil generally triumphs. Even gods fall. And when they do, it devastates those who worshiped them -- leaving everything they believed in in tatters and leaving them desperate for answers.

Coach Bagged

Well, that's one way to solve the puzzling question of how the hell Sandusky could still be out walking the streets.

The Huffington Post: Jerry Sandusky Arrested on New Child Sex Charges/12.7.11

I almost wish I could be there to see the "horseplay" he's gonna be subjected to in the showers when he gets to prison. A little case of karmic perfection.

Ball Boys

Well, I guess now we know which two schools are gonna get invited to the "KY Intense" Child Sodomy Bowl this year.

ABC News: Syracuse University Assistant Coach Accused of Child Sexual Abuse/11.18.11

Quote of the Day

"I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me when you’re accused of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, you may not want to literally phone in your defense on national television."

-- Jon Stewart on Jerry Sandusky's bizarre decision to allow Bob Costas to interview him on the phone

The clip is below, and it only gets better from there.

Meanwhile today, there's this and this.

The Daily Show
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Penn Skate

If you spend any time at all reading David Brooks -- and I can't in good conscience suggest that you do -- you know that the question is never, will he drop to his knees and subserviently suck off the wealthy and powerful in any given situation but whether he'll take the full porn star-style money shot to the face when it's all over. Nobody shills for the power structure like Brooks; not even his counterpart at the Times in imparting the enlightened view from the Upper East Side, Tom Friedman, even comes close. If he were a decent writer rather than a flatulent hack it could easily be argued that he takes shamelessness to an art form.

With all of that in mind, guess which side of the fence Brooks comes down on in the whole Penn State child rape and cover-up? In a piece in yesterday's Times with the breathtakingly ironic title "Let's All Feel Superior," Brooks cautions the little people against the "vanity" of voicing indignation in the direction of those who were aware of the horrors occurring right under their noses yet did nothing substantial to immediately put a stop to them -- the Penn State athletic and institutional Illuminati which includes Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley. Employing a sense of moral relativism honed to a knife's edge by years of making excuses for Wall Street, Brooks over-intellectualizes the decision to, you know, do the right thing by bringing up motivated blindness, normalcy bias, the Rwandan genocide, Kitty Genovese and by generally raising his nose toward the heavens and beseeching only he who is without sin to cast the first stone.

It practically goes without saying that Brooks will give the automatic benefit of the doubt to those who've attained positions of authority and therefore know better and are made of higher-quality stuff than the average unwashed, but to indirectly condone the systemic concealment of child rape -- and the protection, inadvertently or not, of the rapist -- is new territory even for him. In the ethical purgatory Brooks and his anointed ilk inhabit, there are always acceptable rationalizations for why the powerful do what they do, regardless of which realm those powerful happen to move in or what it is they happen to be doing. His masturbating aloud by sternly scolding those who dare to look with disdain at a guy who didn't immediately put his fist in the face of a child rapist or at least go directly to the police is just more of Brooks being Brooks.

As usual, it's a lot of pseudo-cerebral horseshit that's meaningless to anyone who exists in the real world.

The fact is that whether any of us can conclusively say exactly what he or she would've done if confronted with the evil McQueary, Paterno, et al were aware of hardly matters. If you have a brain, a heart and a soul you would've done something more. Something right. And even if you wouldn't have, it in no way exculpates the actions of those who we already know didn't do all they should have. If you dropped the ball and didn't do the moral and human thing when put in that situation -- whether it be because you were blinded or scared, or because you wanted to cover your ass and the ass of your football program and school -- it would make you exactly the same as the people at Penn State who covered for Jerry Sandusky as he raped kids: wrong.

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I enjoy being around children. I enjoy their enthusiasm I just have a good time with them. Everybody needs people to care for them. Sometimes they don't want it. Sometimes they don't understand what you're trying to do, but they want to be disciplined."

-- Jerry Sandusky in a recently uncovered interview with NBC News from 1987

The interview in question is disturbing for a whole host of reasons, given what we now know about Sandusky. But one of the most unsettling things about it is that as you watch it you find yourself feeling as if it should've been obvious what Sandusky was up to. Of course we're tainted by hindsight now, but there's something off about the way Sandusky appears when talking about his relationship with kids. Maybe it's the frightening condition of his teeth, all lupine incisors which make him look like one of the vampires from 30 Days of Night, but it's much, much more than that. I felt like I had seen his mannerisms before -- and in fact I have. That's because years ago I saw a documentary that stayed with me and likely will for the remainder of my life: It's from 1994 and it's called Chicken Hawk.

For those who haven't seen it, it details with a clinical detachment the men who belong to NAMBLA -- the North American Man-Boy Love Association -- and is often told from their point of view. It obviously was met with a metric ton of controversy and indignation when it first opened, and with good reason. But much to its credit, the picture it paints is something I think every adult should see; yes it's gruesome stuff, unbelievably hard to watch at times, but it's also mesmerizing in the way it pulls back the curtain on the way men who molest children think and rationalize their despicable desires. It shows sickness and evil in the most matter-of-fact manner imaginable.

There's just something about the way Sandusky talked, and I get the feeling that if anyone around him had seen this documentary he or she might've at least been suspicious of his motives.

I'm not going to put it up here, but the movie -- in its entirely, I believe -- is posted on YouTube. Although I promise you'll feel like you need a shower afterward, I can't recommend watching it enough as a fascinating window into the mind and soul of people like Jerry Sandusky.

Quote of the Day

"Yes it fucking does. If you see anyone -- even your own father -- raping a ten year old in the showers, the first thing you do is stop it yourself. You don't even call the cops right away. You clock the rapist in the head or drag the boy out of his clutches. I'm so sick of these excuses for the inexcusable. McQueary is as depraved as all the others who stood by and did nothing."

-- Andrew Sullivan on the assertion by some that Mike McQueary's reaction to walking in on Jerry Sandusky as he raped a young boy doesn't seem so strange when you consider that Sandusky was like a relative of his, hence why he ran and told his father about it rather than stopping it cold

I'm probably going to be out of the mix for most of the day, but I think it's hugely important that we don't do the traditional "new week = new news cycle" thing with this story. Besides, the scandal is only going to get worse anyway. Much worse, I'm betting.

Assistant Quote of the Day

"I get that it's probably hard to believe that this guy you think is infallible and this program you think is sacred could hide such heinous activities, but there is some precedent for that -- and just like with the Catholic Church, no one's trying to take away your religion, in this case football, they're just trying to bring some accountability to a pope and some of his cardinals who fucked up. So don't worry, on Saturday you'll still get to go to services against Nebraska; no one's gonna take that away. 'Cause obviously you're young and that would be a traumatic experience -- and we wouldn't want that memory to scar you for life."

-- Jon Stewart on the Penn State scandal and the firing of Joe Paterno

Absolutely perfect.

I went into this quite a bit on the podcast last night, but in a couple of sentences Stewart sums up exactly what's wrong with the Penn State student and alumni outcry over the "unfairness" of Joe Pa being shitcanned. It comes down to this, so pay attention, kids: Football: unimportant. Children being raped: very important. Please get your priorities straight.

Sandusky sodomized children. Paterno knew about it, it happened on his watch, and he didn't do enough to stop it and to follow up with the investigation into what were unbelievably horrific events taking place right in the middle of Happy Valley (and please spare me the song and dance about how he's being scapegoated, because he isn't). Sandusky gets arrested and Paterno gets off relatively easy by only losing his job and not being hauled in by police and put through the wringer.

As for the indignation from the Penn State faithful, let me ask a question that I already know the answer to: If you weren't personally invested in the people and institution currently under fire, if you didn't deify them -- if it was, say, Les Miles or Bo Pelini or Lou Holtz years ago at the center of this same scandal -- would you still be so willing to suspend disbelief and automatically grant an immutable benefit of the doubt? Or would you be like the rest of us not blinded by our emotional attachments -- would you be willing and able to see this travesty for what it is and be demanding accountability and justice for the victims and their families?

Of course you would. Please think about that.

You're on the wrong side of this fight -- but you wouldn't be if it were anybody but Paterno. And that makes your argument crap.

"Jerry's Kids"

An alert reader sent me this link; it's to an effusively hagiographic profile of Jerry Sandusky for Sports Illustrated back in 1999. The piece is worth reading from start to finish because, given what we now know, it's both thoroughly disturbing and a treasure trove of gallows humor gold.

The "zingers" come fast and furious, but this is my personal favorite:

"Partly because of his Second Mile responsibilities, Sandusky turned down a prime head coaching opportunity, at Maryland in 1991, and his decision to retire at the end of this season (his last game will be the Dec. 28 Alamo Bowl against Texas A&M) was partly based on his wanting to get more involved in fund-raising and program development for the organization. 'Jerry has always been our heart and soul,' says Hank Lesch, Second Mile's vice president of development."

Yup. He wanted to get much more involved, apparently. And I guess we now have an idea what it is about Second Mile that would make him give up a head coaching job.

This, though, is probably the most inadvertently prescient line of all:

"Here's the best thing you can say about Jerry Sandusky: He's the main reason that Penn State is Linebacker U... and linebackers aren't even his enduring legacy."

I would say so.

Quote of the Day

"So why is Paterno taking the biggest hit (other than Sandusky) from the public? Because Paterno is the man with the statue. He is the most admired and beloved -- and maybe feared -- person in the Penn State world. He is the man people entrust to set the standard for leadership and life conduct, and hold others to it. It's a role Paterno earned and embraced. With responsibility comes responsibility... Many others contributed to Paterno's 400-plus wins at Penn State, yet he got the statue. Many others contributed to a decade of freedom for a sex predator, yet Paterno will take much of the blame. That's how it goes."

-- Scott Ostler in a scathing piece in the San Francisco Chronicle on the immediate firing of Joe Paterno by the Penn State trustees

That really does just about sum it up, unfortunately.

By the way, at word of Paterno's firing, thousands of Penn State students swarmed the campus administration building at State College shouting, "We want Joe back!" Rocks and bottles were thrown. Windows were broken. A news van was overturned.

So to recap: The firing of Joe Paterno, a football coach, provokes a near-riot. A series of child rapes on the Penn State campus and the apparently criminal cover-up of it, not so much.

I get that our idols are our idols, but dammit.

Update: If this story turns out to be legit, Penn State's nightmare has just begun. You think Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier losing their jobs is a big deal? This is gonna be like a nuclear bomb detonated in the middle of Happy Valley. Holy hell.

Say It Ain't So, Joe

I was going to avoid this subject simply because there's an odd sort of conflict of interest at play for me -- namely, all of my ex's siblings went to this particular school and their rabid allegiance to it was the subject of quite a bit of back-and-forth between us during my time with their sister. I've never been someone who aligns myself with any group, let alone vigorously, and so I never could understand the almost cult-like devotion and blood-brotherhood ethos with fellow alumni that an alma-mater could inspire. It just didn't make a bit of sense to me and so I often looked at the traditional machinations and proclamations of unwavering faith that went along with it probably much the same way that Mark and Ollie looked at the Mek tribe when they made the decision to live with it and document its alien ways. Although I was probably more of a dick than those guys were -- I admit that.

Bottom line, though: My adopted brothers and sister are truly great people and I certainly wouldn't want to insult them, but strangely that very special brand of steadfast fealty is part of the reason I want to at least throw out a minor comment or two on the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State that just ended the almost mythical career of the school's football coach, Joe Paterno. I won't run down the details of the scandal that has inarguably brought shame to what was going to be the hallowed legacy of Paterno and has consumed the Penn State athletics program from the inside out; those details are sickening, made even more so when you consider that it appears there were those within the program -- Paterno included -- who at least had some idea what was going on with defensive coach Jerry Sandusky and yet didn't lift a finger to truly put a stop to it. Obviously, Paterno isn't charged with a crime and I believe him when he expresses extraordinary remorse for what happened, as well as what he did and didn't do about it. Paterno's cultivated a reputation for being a stand-up guy, so it really is unfortunate that this is the way he's going to go out.

The issue I have, again, is with the view by those who either went to Penn State or just count themselves among the school's many fans that it's an almost infallible institution. Case in point: An article written for USA Today College by a Penn State alum named Emily Grier in which she goes to nearly super-human lengths to express sympathy for the victims of the alleged abuse while defending Penn State as an establishment -- a way of life, even -- that remains largely above reproach. One which has earned the devotion it inspires through a lifetime of good deeds that simply can't be sullied by the actions of a few bad apples.

Except that this runs much deeper than that.

True, at worst it would appear as if the gruesome crimes allegedly perpetrated by Sandusky were indirectly enabled by a handful of people, but those people are undeniably the power structure of Penn State -- not necessarily the heart of the school but certainly the ones who hold the hearts, minds and loyalty of the student body and beyond. Make no mistake, if a systemic cover-up of any kind took place that allowed Jerry Sandusky to rape children, that's not a couple of bad apples -- that's a Catholic Church-level crime. And much like followers of the Catholic Church, the Penn State nation will have to learn to reconcile the fact that the view of their institution has been irreparably tarnished, and with excellent reason. Of course the school has done much good throughout its history and that shouldn't be disregarded, but it can be argued that the church has as well, and yet that allowed it no slack when the details of the behavior of a relative few within its ranks began to come to light. In fact, the presentation of itself as a benign and charitable entity is exactly why its sins are so devastating. Why they feel like such a betrayal to so many.

Joe Paterno is Penn State. He's the face of the school -- its deity. And when you hold someone or something up to idol worship, you blind yourself to the possibility that that person or institution is capable of terrible things. The same as any of us is.

It bothers me because it makes me feel like I was always right in saying that no one deserves sanctification -- no one has earned it and no one, no matter how much you believe in him or her, is beyond the potential to let you down. I wish someone would prove me wrong about this, but that never seems to happen. The good almost always succumb. Evil generally triumphs. Even gods fall. And when they do, it devastates those who worshiped them -- leaving everything they believed in in tatters and leaving them desperate for answers.