Make no mistake, he was the leader of Penn State. As one moron at a recent PSU town hall said: Joe Paterno was the most important person at Penn State for the last 50 years. She then went on to ask about how he was going to honored. I've come to understand that the members of the Cult of Paterno are stultifyingly tone deaf and stupid, so I wasn't terribly surprised by that question.
In a softball last interview with Sally Jenkins he mumbled something about not knowing about rape and man, and hedged about not knowing what to do. Apparently he forgot what he did in 1999 when he facilitated the "retirement" of his good friend and long time assistant Jerry Sandusky amidst a police investigation of Sandusky raping boys.
Not satisfied that enough children had been victimized, Paterno continued to let Sandusky use Penn State facilities, offices, showers and pools for his pederasty. When confronted with the facts in 2002, he again "found away around the law" by going to his superiors, rather than police. After that fiasco he CONTINUED to allow Sandusky access to Penn State right up to October of 2011 when Sandusky was in the Presidents suite at a football game against Illinois.
At no time did Paterno put his foot down and ban Sandusky. Paterno could have snapped his fingers and any number of sycophants would have taken care of the Sandusky problem. He chose to not be bothered by what is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable.
I don't mourn Paterno or his family. I mourn for the 10 victims and their families whose lives will never be normal. Paterno is no hero. He is not a flawed protagonist in a Greek tragedy. He was a facilitator of evil. He was held up as a leader and molder of young men, yet when 10 boys needed him to be a leader and protect them from his good friend Jerry Sandusky, he chose to be bad people.
Great post, Pat. As I said to you on Twitter, it's amazing that people would turn a blind eye to Paterno but condemn Bernard Law. The two situations are nearly identical. In fact, PSU's and Paterno's might well be worse, because Sandusky was allowed to stay in the exact same place to continue his predatory actions with children. It really is telling just how obtuse some very, very stupid people are.
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