Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

People are weird.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

No Justins, No Peace

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Cole is on a roll !

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Let there be snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / More on Paterno

Reader Interactions

448Comments

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, so Scott Paterno (Joe Pa’s spawn) in 1996 was all hot and bothered about Bill Clinton. To the point where he publically stated that Clinton committed murder 56 times.

    I’ll bet he blew a gasket over the blue dress.

    But he can’t seem to generate any heat over a boyfucking asswipe.

    Amazing, that.

    The media twits making excuses for Paterno should hang from the same scaffold.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    I just arrived home and the first thing I did was check to see if Joe resigned yet. When he used the words to this extent in his statement, I lost all respect. It was his responsibility to question the grad assistant as to the extent. Someone needs to ask Joe, what extent is acceptable. Anyone find it interesting that the former grad. asst is now a coach with Penn State. I guess money and prestige helps erase what one witnessed.
    The NCAA penalizes teams if the athlete takes a shirt. SMU received the death penalty for paying students and well Penn State won’t receive anything because allowing a former coach to rape children isn’t sanctioned.

  6. 6.

    Moonbatting Average

    The hideous irony here is that with all the NCAA infractions going on at Miami, USC, Ohio State, et al, Penn State was held up as a paragon of virtue by the sports media. In reality, this stuff is so grotesquely worse than some booster giving gifts to players that it beggars description.

  8. 8.

    aimai

    I’ll say here what I said there. I’m a five foot nothing middle aged woman and there’s no way I would have walked past that shower without dragging that child to safety. Loveable Joe From Lowell compared it, over at LGM, to the shock and fear that one feels when a gunman opens up on a crowd and argued that “none of us would be heroes” if we, too, caught sight of an old man buggering a ten year old boy.

    My jaw just hit the fucking floor. I know Joe’s morality glands may have been drained over his years of abusing them in the service of the Catholic Church Hierarchy but apparently he doesn’t know any normal people and normal parents. We are confronted every day by dangerous incidents involving children–when a kid gets hit on a soccer field or is injured while playing there are really zero adults who run away from the scene of the action or stand bewildered wondering who to notify.

    A 28 year old graduate assistant former football player ought to have had the natural human kindness and good sense, the basic human decency, to have grabbed the rapist and secured the child and called a fucking ambulance.

    And you know what? Ditto for Paterno. Not that he was in a position to call an ambulance some hours or days after the fact but State College is a hugely small social world–he had a duty to the parents and staff of the various community organizations with which his “friend” and “colleague” was associated to warn them and to put a stop to all contact between his assistant and children. And don’t tell me he couldn’t have done it for fear of reprisals–he had a duty to protect all the children he could even if it meant some social or legal problems. Not the graduate assistant–but Paterno himself. There is no excuse.

    aimai

  9. 9.

    Perfect Tommy

    No, I don’t find much to laugh about in this situation. I am a Penn State grad and I am appalled at the cover being given to Paterno on this. He needs to go ASAP.

  10. 10.

    Rick

    Another little tidbit about sex and coaches and nittany lions in this era is that Women’s basketball coach Rene Portland was enforcing a strict ‘no lesbians’ policy on her team. According to wikipedia, Portland was hired by Joe Paterno. So, you see, institutionalized bigotry toward gay people, while the hierarchy sweeps their own malfeasance under rugs. Sound familiar?

  11. 11.

    John PM

    The story says that the first allegations surfaced in 1998. No doubt, however, as with the Catholic Church scandal, we are going to find out that Sandusky has been doing this for a lot longer. Penn State better start setting aside a few million dollars (or more) to cover their liability.

    And I will go further than aimai – I would have gotten the child out of their and then shoved the SOB in a locker until the authorities got their.

  12. 12.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    So do you agree with West of the Cascades over at LGM that McQueary should be fired because he didn’t react the way you think he should have?

    I’ll say here what I said there. I’m a five foot nothing middle aged woman and there’s no way I would have walked past that shower without dragging that child to safety.

    I will say as I did in the other thread, it’s very easy to sit behind your computer in the safety of your home and decide after the fact that you totally would have made a better decision when confronted by the same situation.

    I won’t defend McQueary’s decision, but I don’t think he should be fired because he foolishly thought Paterno would actually care that a child had been attacked.

  13. 13.

    Violet

    This is completely off topic, but since the tag is “excellent links” I thought it might be appropriate: NotMittRomney.com. Yes,it’s real and it has been put together by a bunch of conservatives who don’t want Romney to be the nominee.

    The Republican primary just keeps getting better and better.

  15. 15.

    Boots Day

    Paterno’s “I was fooled” is in all probability nothing more than a cheesy lie, but even if it were the truth, he needs to resign ASAP. He was in complete control of the Penn State football program, but wasn’t even sharp enough to know that one of his trusted lieutenants was raping boys for over a decade? That’s Paterno’s best-case scenario.

    You know what, Joe, it’s time to have someone in charge who will be aware of multiple felonies being committed under his nose.

  19. 19.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mnemosyne: You’re misstating my argument — I argued that McQueary should resign because he never followed through and contacted the police himself after his report to Paterno and the other administrators didn’t result in a criminal prosecution of Sandusky … none of my argument was based on McQueary’s actions at the time he witnessed the crime.

    I’m not judging him based on his reaction in the moment, as you suggest, but rather based on (1) letting it go unpunished, just as all the other actors did here, because they had “told their superior,” and (2) taking a job as an assistant coach in the same program where Sandusky continued to have an office and have emeritus status and for eight years thereafter not stepping up to make sure that what McQueary witnessed personally — Sandusky raping a 10 year old boy — was punished, or preventing it from happening to other boys.

    Yes, for participating in the eight year cover-up, after being the one to personally witness the crime, McQueary should quit.

  22. 22.

    Comrade Mary

    I can see someone walking into that shower scene of rape and being shocked, embarrassed, disbelieving — and walking out with some level of denial, only later piecing together what had been seen. Maybe he was too late to save the kid, but he was still capable of reporting to the authorities — so why did he do nothing when there was obviously no follow-up?

    That said, I’m aimai’s size and age. I’ve been in dangerous situations, and I’ve been in negative situations that angered me but where I was not at obvious physical risk. Yet I think I’m impulsive enough to have jumped in, too, in this scenario.

    This assistant was a grown, fit man, probably as big as aimai and I put together. Facing down an older man raping a child is not the same thing as facing a gunman. Physical safety had nothing to do with his choices in this situation.

    I can see that maybe some self-induced blindness let that man walk out of that room without helping, but I can’t frame it as any kind of conscious, sensible, moral choice in response to personal risk. He faced none. Points to him for the initial report to Paterno, but eternal shame to him for not making sure something was done. He was never approached by the cops. He knew the story had been buried.

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    The whole lot of them had better hope for protection from the parents. Had this involved my kid, no Michael Jackson-sized sack of cash would help them.

  24. 24.

    muddy

    @Mnemosyne:
    The child probably hoped that the person *standing right there* would actually care that a child is being attacked. The GAs bad action precedes his telling whatever he told to Paterno. Well, after going home and calling his dad for advice.

    That child was already in a shitty situation, think how he felt when the other adult (supposedly a nice person, not a mean rapist) went back out after seeing and left him to it. How much longer did the rape go on after he went out? Probably excited the old man all over again thinking how much worse the victim felt at that point. No hope for you kid, bang bang bang.

    If the old guy had viagra he might still have been humping away when GA was crying to his daddy on the phone about it.

  25. 25.

    jrg

    No one could have predicted that elevating people fond of saying shit like “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” to deity-like status would result in abhorrent behavior.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    @West of the Cascades:

    You’re misstating my argument—I argued that McQueary should resign because he never followed through and contacted the police himself after his report to Paterno and the other administrators didn’t result in a criminal prosecution of Sandusky … none of my argument was based on McQueary’s actions at the time he witnessed the crime.

    If that’s your argument, shouldn’t the entire coaching staff be fired? There’s pretty much no way that Sandusky’s behavior was kept a secret from everyone else, especially after he was banned from the locker room. What about the janitor who also witnessed an assault by Sandusky but didn’t report it because he feared losing his job — I’m assuming he should be fired as well, correct?

    I guess I’m not understanding why the guy who reported the assault is supposed to be punished more severely than the ones who actually covered it up because he didn’t, in your opinion, do enough to follow up after he reported it.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    @Comrade Mary:

    But, again, why does he hold more moral blame than the actual criminals who covered up the crime? That’s what I’m not getting from the arguments here.

  29. 29.

    shortstop

    @aimai: So we’ve learned that it’s not Joe from Lowell’s pro-Catholic bias that’s to blame for his never-ending moral gymnastics on this issue. Apparently he’s an equal-opportunity apologist for rapists of children.

  30. 30.

    Punchy

    Thanks, John, for continuing to post on this. This is some fucked up shit (child rape) mixed with the unbelievable sleaze of college athletics and arrogant fucksticks’ reputations (Paterno et al).

    It’s like the Catholic Church meets college football. Lets call it “The Notre Dame”.

  32. 32.

    JPL

    The former Grad Assistant and now Coach is on a recruitment trip and could not be reached for comment.

  33. 33.

    daveNYC

    @Mnemosyne:

    I will say as I did in the other thread, it’s very easy to sit behind your computer in the safety of your home and decide after the fact that you totally would have made a better decision when confronted by the same situation.

    For fuck’s sake, you’d at least fucking call 911. It’s a goddamn naked 50 year old ass-raping a ten year old boy. Unless he was ejaculating 9mm rounds, it’s not like spineless Mike was at risk of getting killed.

  34. 34.

    Napoleon

    @Comrade Mary:

    This assistant was a grown, fit man, probably as big as aimai . . .

    Since he is still at PSU as an assistant football coach I think it is safe to say he played college ball and is likely significantly bigger then aimai.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    Has anyone ever heard the story from This American Life called “Petty Tyrant”? They re-ran it this past weekend. It’s not quite as easy to buck the system as people seem to think, especially when the other guy holds all of the power and can credibly threaten to ruin you.

  36. 36.

    Loneoak

    Burn the whole program to the ground. Creepy old fucks like Joe Pa get worshipped by boosters and the press for winning footballs games (altho not many recently…) and there’s no way to root out that kind of corruption.

  37. 37.

    batgirl

    @Napoleon: I tend to think that the assistant just making his presence known would have been enough to end the rape, but if it hadn’t then damn yes he should have grabbed the boy. Whether he is legally culpable, he is surely morally culpable. He let the rape of a ten-year old boy proceed.

  38. 38.

    Comrade Mary

    @Mnemosyne: I’m not making the argument that he is the most culpable (I’m allowing the out that he may not have fully processed what he was seeing in the moment). But his failure to follow up makes him very worthy of criticism. If he failed to recognize and act immediately, but pushed hard on getting this matter investigated, instead of reporting it then shrugging his shoulders, I’d have a lot of respect for him.

    And I don’t agree that he could have been afraid for his personal safety in this situation. No freakin’ way.

  39. 39.

    The Moar You Know

    No one could have predicted that elevating people fond of saying shit like “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” to deity-like status would result in abhorrent behavior.

    @jrg: At least one person here gets the bigger picture.

    School sports programs are a training ground for future sociopaths, period. That most people get out of said programs without becoming sociopaths is not a defense of those programs, but merely a testimony to the fact that most human beings, when given the chance, don’t fundamentally desire to become predators on their own kind.

    EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot. Run that SOB Paterno straight into jail on a rail. He is a liar and gives aid and comfort to pedophiles. God knows what else is lurking in HIS closet.

  40. 40.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne:
    He should be fired for cowardice because he walked past the scene of a crime while it was being committed and refused to intervene and prevent a child rape when he was in no risk of harm himself. This has nothing to do with legal requirements it has to do with an absolute basic human duty to intervene when a child is being hurt. He proved he was not up to the task–and that means in terms of his work life supervising young men in dangerous situations that he simply doesn’t have the moral or ethical fiber any of us would like to see in a coach.

    aimai

  41. 41.

    JPL

    @Mnemosyne: Agreed but how do you live with yourself. I’m impulsive and I would have said something to stop the situation and then I would have called the cops. The grad. asst. called his dad. What a spineless punk.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    He did call the police. They took his report and did nothing.

    What now?

    @daveNYC:

    For fuck’s sake, you’d at least fucking call 911.

    You’re in the locker room. First, find a phone that gets an outside line and isn’t a campus only line. Then convince 911 to come on campus without the permission of the campus police.

    Again, I’m not getting why McQueary’s crime of reporting the assault to his boss is worse than that of the guys who covered it up. I’m really not.

  43. 43.

    scav

    Paternolism: Looking the other way for the good of the team.

    Couldn’t work in unfatherly in a punchy enough way. I leave that to crowdsourcing.

  44. 44.

    Loneoak

    Now that I think of it, there really ought to be asterisk next to Paterno’s name in the record books.

  46. 46.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mnemosyne: You just watched a 57 year old man fucking a 10 year old boy in the football team’s shower. Should avoiding being ruined by the system be your biggest concern going forward? McQueary took the coaching job and kept his mouth shut for eight years instead of calling the police.

    I’m not suggesting he receive any harsher punishment than the rest of them — far from it, since he (and Paterno), apparently bothered to tell the truth to the Grand Jury. He and Paterno should resign – or, if they don’t, the Board of Trustees should fire them, along with the college President – and the AD and VP should spend a couple of months in jail for perjury.

  47. 47.

    El Tiburon

    @aimai:
    Perhaps you would have.

    But let’s change the situation a bit: say it was YOUR son or brother or father who was doing the molesting. and instead of a middle aged woman you were in your 20s just starting out at the top spot for your career, I wonder how fast you would blow the whistle.

    I’m really not making excuses for this guy, but he probably saw his entire career flash before his eyes. He could have kept his mouth shut. Sould he have done more? Absolutely.

    Either way it’s a disgusting episode and Paterno needs to go.

  49. 49.

    shortstop

    @Napoleon: That’s probably why CM said “as big as aimai and I put together.”

    But look, physical risk is not really the issue here. Is anyone seriously arguing that the GA thought Sandusky would turn around in mid-rape and jump him? The question is whether the GA acted out of fear for his own standing/career when he chose not to report this incident to anyone outside the circle. Of course he did. And of course characterizing that venal choice as fear of “bucking the system”–like the guy was complaining about office space or the GA stipend structure!–is an incredibly insulting way to describe someone’s decision not to report the RAPE OF A CHILD. Unbelievable.

  50. 50.

    Punchy

    School sports programs are a training ground for future sociopaths, period.

    Jesus f’in Christ buying Birkenstocks….this is ridiculous, obscene hyperbole that I hope is snark. Sports programs ALSO are training grounds for fitness, positive self esteem, networking and friendships, and a sense of importance to young people.

    You must not be an athlete of any sort.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    Meanwhile, you have the actual head of the athletic department and the school’s counsel actively conspiring to cover up the report and protect Sandusky but, hey, shit just happens, amirite? The real culprit here is the guy who didn’t react the way you’re convinced you would have in an emergency that you’ve never actually faced.

    Sorry, I’d rather put the blame with the guy who committed the assault and the guys who actively covered it up rather than the guy who foolishly thought that reporting what he’d seen might actually get the university to take action.

  52. 52.

    Violet

    Who knows what the background of McQueary is. Maybe he was molested by a priest as a child and seeing the attack brought back all sorts of horrible memories. And the fact that he reported it to anyone at all was heroic, given the trauma he’d experienced. And after that he just slipped back into denial and simply couldn’t make himself go any further once the others covered it up.

    Not saying this happened, just saying it’s easy to judge without being in the other person’s shoes. I’m glad he did what he did, even if it wasn’t enough. Without his statement, this horror would probably still be happening to other boys right now.

  53. 53.

    Joel

    @Moonbatting Average: I’ve been banging the drum about Nebraska’s criminality under Tom Osborne in the threads the past few days. Not that it compares to a coverup involving raping children, but Osborne certainly had his hands dirty in criminal affairs: covering up sexual assault (Christian Peter), hiding a firearm involved in an attempted murder (Tyrone Williams), and the never-ending cluster fuck that was Lawrence Phillips (who nearly killed his girlfriend). Sports Illustrated wrote all about it here, and what was done about all this? Nothing.

    Nebraska voters put Osborne in the house for three terms.

  54. 54.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne:

    You’re in the locker room. First, find a phone that gets an outside line and isn’t a campus only line. Then convince 911 to come on campus without the permission of the campus police.

    Oy. Just stop. Stop. You’re humiliating yourself here.

  55. 55.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mnemosyne: I can’t imagine that a 28 year-old assistant coach at a major university didn’t carry a cellular telephone in 2002. Seriously, dude – “find a phone that gets an outside line that’s not a campus only line”?? That’s weak even for an apologist.

  57. 57.

    aimai

    I don’t actually think McQueary had a duty to follow up–exactly, week’s later with the police because at that point he thought (or could have thought) that the process was working itself out and he didn’t actually have more information than the child or the child’s parents as witnesses

    But at the time? That’s another story:–but he had a duty to rescue the boy and call the kids parents and to call an ambulance. That simply superceded every other consideration. Jeezus, I’d do the same for a dog that was being beaten by someone. I just totally don’t get the notion that a person “freezes” and their “career flashes before their eyes” when they see an old man buggering a ten year old. I don’t even get having enough time to have that thought cross your mind.

    And as for if it were my son, brother, or father–jeez, you act like women haven’t been walking in on men molesting their own children for years. This actually isn’t some kind of thought experiment for most adult women. Yes, I would absolutely hold myself culpable if I failed to protect my child, or anyone else’s child, from being molested by someone in my immiediate family. There’s no way that loyalty towards a family member supercedes a duty to protect a child. This is not a thought experiment that cuts your way–its a real life issue for abused children and for battered women the world over.

    aimai

  58. 58.

    ed_finnerty

    @Mnemosyne:

    I will say as I did in the other thread, it’s very easy to sit behind your computer in the safety of your home and decide after the fact that you totally would have made a better decision when confronted by the same situation.

    All he had to do was yell, “Hey. Stop raping that boy.”, and the guy would have stopped. He knew sandusky, it wasn’t like it was 10 crips beating someone in the street.

    He didn’t do anything because he didn’t want to imperil his position by challenging his superior.

  59. 59.

    Suffern ACE

    @Mnemosyne: I can understand that, but I changed my mind yesterday when I found out that the guy is now and remains a coach at Penn State. I want to give him some credit for his testimony, since it appears that the grand jury found that two or three other higher ranking executives of the school testified in ways that were not credible-in ways that attempted to absolve themselves from blame by making the guy who appears to be telling the truth look bad. He is not a hero, however, and there is not much that can be said that would make him one of the good guys at this point.

  60. 60.

    Punchy

    never-ending cluster fuck that was Lawrence Phillips (who nearly killed his girlfriend).

    True story: I worked with his girlfriend (after the assault). She was a trainwreck due to all the abuse. Blamed herself, natch. Sigh….

  62. 62.

    jrg

    @Punchy: I think the point is that this a predictable result of teaching people the rules don’t apply to them, and the only important thing is to win.

  63. 63.

    cckids

    @aimai:

    We are confronted every day by dangerous incidents involving children—when a kid gets hit on a soccer field or is injured while playing there are really zero adults who run away from the scene of the action or stand bewildered wondering who to notify

    This. I truly don’t want to hear/read one more comment condemning the Chinese who walked by as the toddler was struck in that hit and run. The same people who were frothing that that incident “says something about the character of the Chinese people” are probably making excuses for Paterno & co. Anyone who could witness or hear from an eyewitness of this and not go to the cops is beneath contempt. Lowest of the Low.

  64. 64.

    Comrade Mary

    @El Tiburon:

    But let’s change the situation a bit: say it was YOUR son or brother or father who was doing the molesting. and instead of a middle aged woman you were in your 20s just starting out at the top spot for your career, I wonder how fast you would blow the whistle.

    I might consciously hem and haw over some financial corruption, or something involving adults. But there is just something so visceral about a live child being abused right in front of you that I can’t give someone a pass for seeing, understanding, and consciously choosing to walk away.

    (If that’s what happened, of course. If he didn’t process it fully till later, I can understand the immediate retreat.)

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @West of the Cascades:

    So we need to also track down the janitor who didn’t bother to report what he saw to anyone, take away his pension, and send him to jail, right? After all, what he did was even worse than what McQueary did since he didn’t bother to report it at all.

    Should avoiding being ruined by the system be your biggest concern going forward?

    Again, that’s a very easy decision for you to make on his behalf while sitting safely behind your computer eight years later, particularly since his, say, being blackballed from any coaching position in the NCAA wouldn’t actually affect your life in any way, would it?

    @JPL:

    I can’t defend what he did, but I can’t say he should be fired because he “only” reported what he’d seen to the campus police after reporting it to his boss.

  67. 67.

    Joel

    @Violet: This is where I stand. Too many knives out on this issue. I think we can safely say that Paterno, the athletic director, and the head of the campus police are hugely culpable in this cover up. The buck stops somewhere and those guys didn’t do shit to save these kids. I think the water gets a lot muddier once you step down the ladder.

  68. 68.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    Has anyone ever heard the story from This American Life called “Petty Tyrant”? They re-ran it this past weekend. It’s not quite as easy to buck the system as people seem to think, especially when the other guy holds all of the power and can credibly threaten to ruin you.

    Thanks for the link. I will give it a listen.

    You are right that it is not always easy to buck the system. It is also doubly difficult when a person does report an incident, and people promise to take care of it, and then do a cover up. It is also hard when an institution and even legal authorities decide to provide cover for malefactors.

    Sometimes threats are not even necessary, especially when there is no where really to go to get outside the system.

    There are also troubling hints here that some sports reporters had heard rumblings about this, but didn’t want to believe it or pursue it. It is amazing how often people just don’t want to know.

    @jrg:

    No one could have predicted that elevating people fond of saying shit like “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” to deity-like status would result in abhorrent behavior.

    Stop oversimplifying. It’s not just the world of sports.

    From a 2010 story:

    Sexual abuse scandal rocks Boy Scouts of America after $18.5m payout
    __
    Organisation accused of cover-up as it seeks to keep thousands of ‘perversion files’ secret

    It is sad, and not atypical, how organizations decide to sacrifice those who have been violated in order to maintain the reputation and “good running” of an organization.

    The media twits making excuses for Paterno should hang from the same scaffold.

    Paterno isn’t the main problem if other school officials willfully misled authorities and dragged their feet on this.

  69. 69.

    JPL

    As a parent I taught my sons to tell someone if something inappropriate was happening either to them or someone else.
    McQueary wasn’t a child, he was a f**king adult. He was worried about his career and ignored the pain caused the child.
    What a punk…

  70. 70.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    Jesus, a rape occurred on the grounds of a public university. Surely there’s some emergency number to call for some emergency service. Some police department somewhere has jurisdiction over this.

    You’re in the locker room. First, find a phone that gets an outside line and isn’t a campus only line. Then convince 911 to come on campus without the permission of the campus police.

    The Penn State PD doesn’t respond to 911 calls for rape now?

    ETA: the way you are making this sound as if the Penn State campus was the most dangerous place in the world in the late 90s/early 00s. No outside line? The campus police not letting outside help through? Why wouldn’t the campus pd not immediately respond to a 911 call alleging rape?

  71. 71.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne:

    That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. Why is it one or the other? Everyone is culpable according to their position in the crime or the coverup.

    I hold McQueary to blame because he was on the scene of a crime and did not intervene to stop it–that was his duty as a bystander. He didn’t have any duty to punish the crime–he’s not the police–and he didn’t have any duty to punish the offender–he’s not a judge. But he had a first responder’s/adults duty to protect the child.

    And I’d like to point out that he did more than flunk the first responder test–which is to say he ran from the burning building without trying to put out the fire and called his fucking daddy–because he clearly was bribed to keep silent by moving seamlessly up the hierarchy. So he not only failed his moral duty to that child but he was paid off for it. And now he is in a position of authority over other vulnerable young men, in a situation in which he may again become cognizant of crimes and abuses against boys and young men.

    If I were his immiediate supervisor I’d fire him for moral turpitude and cowardice for failing to protect the boy in the first place not becuase he had a legal duty to do so (although I think he had a moral duty to do so) but because it proved that in a pinch he doesn’t know how to think straight. He has poor judgement. He’s a moral coward. And it may come back to harm another kid in his care. I wouldn’t take that risk with him–I wouldn’t trust him to make the right decision the second or third time around.

    aimai

  72. 72.

    batgirl

    @Mnemosyne:

    Meanwhile, you have the actual head of the athletic department and the school’s counsel actively conspiring to cover up the report and protect Sandusky but, hey, shit just happens, amirite? The real culprit here is the guy who didn’t react the way you’re convinced you would have in an emergency that you’ve never actually faced.

    Wow! Nothing about calling out the GA as a moral coward for not stopping the rape of a ten-year old boy in progress lessons the culpability of anyone else. And nothing anyone has said here implies that.

  73. 73.

    Robin G.

    I can see the guy being so stunned by what he was seeing that he simply couldn’t believe it, and didn’t admit it to himself until later reflection. Maybe I’m naive, but I can’t imagine anyone being so heartless as to look over and calmly think, “Oh, there’s a ten year old boy being raped! Hmm. I wonder what’s for lunch.”

    That being said, the entire damn coaching staff should be fired. Anyone who had any reason to believe or suspect that this happened should lose their jobs, and if it’s legally possible, anyone who can be prosecuted for cover up or conspiracy should be so. Anyone who knew should have gone to the police, full stop.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    If I were his immiediate supervisor I’d fire him for moral turpitude and cowardice for failing to protect the boy in the first place not becuase he had a legal duty to do so (although I think he had a moral duty to do so) but because it proved that in a pinch he doesn’t know how to think straight.

    His immediate supervisor was involved in the cover-up. What moral position does he have to fire the guy who reported the crime?

  76. 76.

    Maude

    @shortstop:
    I can’t make excuses for anyone involved in these crimes. I doubt the 10 year old boy is comforted by the fact that the AG may have been shocked at what was happening. The child was under violent attack. The AG didn’t intervene. I bet the 10 year old boy’s parents are beyond shocked at what has happened to their son.

  77. 77.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @Mnemosyne:

    Just cause someone is a blue collar union worker (and I doubt janitors at a premier public university are making minimum wage) doesn’t make them a fucking saint or not blameworthy.

  79. 79.

    stormhit

    @aimai:

    Upon walking in on anyone having sex with anyone else, most people will turn on their heels immediately instead of leering like a pervert to confirm that they saw what they thought they saw. Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend? You’re calling other people vile names, yet you look like the fucking moron who’s incapable of realistically putting themselves in someone else’s shoes.

    But I know internet heroes like yourself are always righteous vigilantes, so whatever.

  80. 80.

    Angela

    @aimai: There are a lot of family members that choose to not see the child being abused right in front of their eyes. My mom was one of them, and in my work with survivors, I have found out her reaction was more the norm than a family member actually stopping the abuse. Unfortunately it does take a rare kind of moral courage to step into an abusive situation and name it, regardless of the personal cost.

    And yeah, Paterno needs to go. As does the president of the college. And I’m glad McQuery refused to cover up to the grand jury. Without his credible testimony showing up the other two to be liars, we might be reading a whole ‘nother story.

  81. 81.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne:

    No you moron–I’m talking about McQueary now and his supervisor now. McQueary is a coach *now* and he has duties *now* that involve recruiting and supervising young men *now.* Now is when, if I were his supervisor, I’d call him into my office and say “You showed selfishness and bad judgement in the past during this horrible incident. Can you prove to me that you would never put your job or the job of other people over the safety of a child or one of your students again?”

    That goes double and triple for Paterno, of course. But I’m not talking about Paterno because the same circle of old sports privilige will protect him–look at Joe from Lowell, he’s basically saying the guy is too senile to have any accountability at all other than cashing his checks.

    aimai

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amanda in the South Bay:

    Jesus, a rape occurred on the grounds of a public university. Surely there’s some emergency number to call for some emergency service. Some police department somewhere has jurisdiction over this.

    The campus police have jurisdiction. If you call 911 about an emergency in a campus building, they call the campus police to respond. If you get raped on campus, the campus police will take your report, not the local cops, and most of the time they’ll keep it within the university’s discipline system and not make a criminal complaint if the assaulter is a student or campus employee.

    Frankly, it’s a huge problem and has been for years.

  84. 84.

    Violet

    @Brachiator:

    There are also troubling hints here that some sports reporters had heard rumblings about this, but didn’t want to believe it or pursue it. It is amazing how often people just don’t want to know.

    Reporters knew about Tiger Woods and his mistresses and other activities and didn’t report on it. One did at one point, or at least hinted at it, and no one believed him. The public didn’t want to know. The corporations making money off tiger, along with the PGA and the TV networks didn’t want to know. No one really wanted to know. Until it all melted down and then everyone wanted to know, claiming they didn’t know anything before. Uh huh. They knew. Head in sand. Look the other way. Protect the asset. That’s the main thing.

  85. 85.

    jibeaux

    Well, I guess if you want to stop child rape, you’re going to need some petite women on your side. Good grief, it’s o.k. because he REPORTED IT LATER? That’s what you do if you catch a coach having happy consensual sex with another adult in the university shower. Child rape in progress is to be fucking stopped. I would have screamed to high heaven if I’d seen that, and if there wasn’t a crowbar nearby to arm myself with I would have gone at his fucking neck with a fucking gym towel. I have a ten year old son and I’m ashamed at some of the bullshit on this thread.

  86. 86.

    aimai

    @stormhit:
    Bullshit that “most people” will walk out on a ten year old boy being buggered. I’ve got a 12 year old girl. I am frequently at her school and around kids all the time. I don’t know anyone who would walk out on a child being raped or even injured.

    aimai

  87. 87.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    @stormhit:

    But this wasn’t “anyone else.” Middle aged men don’t normally assault 10 year olds in the showers.

    The thing is, yeah, it was an emergency situation, and not everyone acts like a hero. But it was an emergency situation where arguably there was no physical risk to the GA. I mean, come one, a 20 something football player vs a 58 year old guy. In many other situations where people are criticized for being internet tough guys, there’s at least the risk of serious injury or death if someone intervenes.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    No you moron—I’m talking about McQueary now and his supervisor now.

    Again, you think that the supervisor that McQueary has now wasn’t involved in covering this up? He had no idea that any of this was going on?

    That’s my point — the department is pretty clearly corrupt from top to bottom. The athletic department has known for over a decade that Sandusky was raping little boys. And you think anyone there has the moral authority to fire a guy who actually bothered to report it?

  90. 90.

    singfoom

    I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I think it’s really simple. If you see someone abusing a child, you have a duty to report that abuse. If you don’t, you are morally culpable in that event by not stopping it during the event, and any abuse that happens after that.

    Abuse is wrong, mmmkay?

    The rest is just details of how people failed to do the right thing.

  91. 91.

    jibeaux

    @stormhit:

    TEN fucking years old. My son is ten years old. He weighs less than sixty pounds. He is less than five feet tall. If anyone ever rapes my ten year old son, the rapist and anyone who saw the goddam thing and didn’t do anything except report it are going to be in my fucking crosshairs. There is not any fucking ambiguity about whether or not he should be being raped in a fucking shower. AND IF YOU REPORT THE NEXT DAY THAT YOU SAW A FUCKING CHILD BEING FUCKING RAPED THEN YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT MISTAKEN ABOUT WHAT YOU FUCKING SAW.

    Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

  93. 93.

    The Moar You Know

    @Punchy: Not snark. As for my sports bona fides, I’m a former professional bicycle racer.

    I have no problem with sports as an activity. I have a huge problem with what schools turn sports programs into – they are not there to serve the interests of the students, to put it mildly.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @singfoom:

    If you see someone abusing a child, you have a duty to report that abuse. If you don’t, you are morally culpable in that event by not stopping it during the event, and any abuse that happens after that.

    McQueary did report it, but apparently the fact that he didn’t follow up to make sure a prosecution happened means he’s just as morally liable as the people who actively conspired to cover up Sandusky’s crimes.

  95. 95.

    Southern Beale

    Fourth Herman Cain accuser, and it’s even worse … this is sexual assault, not harassment:

    Cain’s accuser tells a story that sounds very different from Cain’s innocuous descriptions of his own actions. In her words: “He pulled my head towards his crotch… I said, ‘I have a boyfriend.’ He said, ‘You want a job, right?’”

    Limbaugh saying the outrage is manufactured and shows we’re all a bunch of sissies, Santorum saying all the womenfolk need to get back in the kitchen and stuff like this won’t happen … another day in of media hilarity.

  97. 97.

    soonergrunt

    @daveNYC:

    For fuck’s sake, you’d at least fucking call 911. It’s a goddamn naked 50 year old ass-raping a ten year old boy. Unless he was ejaculating 9mm rounds, it’s not like spineless Mike was at risk of getting killed.

    THIS!
    Look, I made my living for a while charging into machine gun fire. That wasn’t brave anywhere near as much as it was stupid, and if I learned anything at all it was not to judge another person’s actions in that kind of situation. But there is no way that this guy can escape the moral failure of not having called the police.
    I was under the impression that most states in this country have laws making the reporting of known or suspected sexual or physical abuse of minors an affirmative responsibility, especially for educators. If that is the case in Pennsylvania, and was the case at the time, why then are not Joe Paterno and everybody else involved with this under criminal indictment?

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @Violet:

    Reporters knew about Tiger Woods and his mistresses and other activities and didn’t report on it.

    I don’t much care about consensual behavior. Crimes are another matter entirely.

    However, reporters are strange animals, especially sports reporters. Yeah, a number of reporters had hints of Tiger’s exploits, but they were covering the golf beat and didn’t want to get into potential scandal. But many also resented Tiger’s aloofness, his refusal to be a “regular guy,” and so when they story broke, they practically wet themselves to get out pieces of the story. They also didn’t much care whether they portrayed all the women as sluts.

    On the other hand, I am amazed at the number of sports reporters who still love former Dodger Steve Garvey, who is recently in the news again connected with potential new owners of the Dodgers. When Garvey was divorcing his wife (who got branded as a nut job) it came out that the Garve had two mistresses pregnant at the same time. And yet he’s still a great guy, a beloved figure, in part because he makes sure that he butters up the sports press. It’s amazing the degree to which ethics is bound up in ego with these people.

  99. 99.

    ajr22

    Graham Spanier the University President needs to be fired. He offered Unconditional support to both Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley in his initial statement. To my understanding “unconditional support” means even if these two men perjured themselves in an attempt to cover up the rape of children, the University President supports those action. Further his statement offered no apology to the victims, simply put he is not fit to run a University.

  100. 100.

    aimai

    There was a very good Radio Lab quite a while ago about the very large number of people who, at great personal risk to themselves, do something heroic for a perfect stranger. This is not at all as uncommon as the other internet faux tough guys would like you to believe (its just as much a pose of toughguy fakery to insist that no one could ever intervene as to believe, with some actual knowledge of oneself, that one would have intervened). People intervene in dangerous situations all the time. They intervene in merely embarrassing situations by shouting “hey, knock it the fuck off!” all the time.

    The argument that McQueary couldn’t/shouldn’t reasonably have been expected to leave the showers with the boy safely tucked under his arm, called an ambulance, and waited until the boy’s parents came for him is simply absurd. I went to college and I was a graduate student and there is no way I would have let a child scream and bleed in front of me without calling an ambulance–ok?

    My point about McQueary now should be clear to anyone who isn’t Mnemosyne–he failed the first test a person who is in charge of young people should pass. In a pinch, he didn’t do the right thing. He will be faced with the same situation again in the sports world many times: hazing, sexual assualt, child abuse at some football camp–and unless he has had some kind of epiphany he will fail again and because of him some other child will suffer.

    This has nothing to do with the others. Each is culpable in his own way and the system is rotten from top to bottom. By this time if the University doesn’t require each and every Graduate Assistant and Coach to sign an oath stating that they will be held liable for every crime they don’t report directly to the police you have to figure they just want this to continue happening.

    aimai

  102. 102.

    The Moar You Know

    What the fuck is wrong with some of you people?

    Situation: ten year old boy being butt-fucked in front of you. Assailant: unarmed, buck naked, 50+ year-old man.

    Options: Beat assailant’s ass into next week, or, walk away, call dad, file report.

    Some of you are trying to make the point that WALKING AWAY AND FILING A REPORT is an appropriate response? Good God, now I finally understand how the Nazis got away with it. There are some real chickenshit cowards posting here.

  103. 103.

    jibeaux

    @aimai:
    Apparently they’re HERE. Goddam, this is disturbing.
    For the record, I have your daughter’s back and I’m definitely at least 5’4″. I can’t fight a football coach but I will bite a motherfucker if I have to.

  105. 105.

    Emma

    @Mnemosyne: You’re starting to remind me of my father’s old joke about the guy taking the stationmaster’s test. You keep making these weird scenario changes that are meant to move the goalposts so this guy doesn’t carry any blame. The assistant, a strapping former football player, comes across someone committing a vicious crime and his first thought isn’t: I’ve got to protect this child. It’s I got to get out of here. Human!fail.

    You know what really pisses me off about all of this? There is a point in life where you weigh your own future against doing the right thing. If you can’t decide in favor of doing the right thing when a child is being raped and you could have stopped it without any personal physical risk to yourself, you’re not much of a human being. And people like you seem bent on giving him an excuse.

    EDITED: nobody’s saying he’s more guilty than the others. Those who covered it up should be put in cages and not let out for a decade or so at least. But let’s not try to give someone who couldn’t bring himself to fight for a child in these circumstances a get-out-of-moral-responsibility card.

  106. 106.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne: Why isn’t he? Sandusky continued to run kids’ programs until 2009, didn’t he? Do you think McQueary assumed that a prosecution for the rape for which McQueary was a witness had happened during the intervening time and McQueary had not only not been called to testify; he’d somehow missed the whole thing because he was so busy enjoying the fruits of his own career advancement? You are beyond ridiculous.

    @West of the Cascades: Always the same story. Mnemosyne is fundamentally incapable of ever backing off a bad position and, to avoid doing so, will contort herself into increasingly bizarre knots while consistently misrepresenting what others are saying. There are the thread conversations and then there are the parallel ones going on in her head.

    ETA: For the latest version of this, see comment directly below this one.

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    Fine, whatever. McQueary needs to go to jail for the terrible crime of reporting an assault rather than personally stopping it in progress. He should never work with young people again, ever, because not stopping the assault is just as bad as actually raping someone.

  108. 108.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    McQueary was the fucking starting quarterback on the team not some bug eyed towel boy.

  109. 109.

    aimai

    I’m weirded out by this assertion that McQueary is liable because he didn’t follow up the chain of command (I don’t think that at all) but that he’s off the hook for failing to protect a child right in front of his nose. If you see a child going over a cliff and you don’t reach out and catch his arm you are, in fact, responsible for his death if you could have prevented it. If you call the park rangers afterwards and report the broken fence you aren’t actually responsible for their inaction after the fact. But if you see the fence is still broken and you know that children are being sent to play up there years later–you need to do something. That seems to be where McQueary ended up. He did the wrong thing first, took a little cheap moral comfort in having reported the broken fence, and then looked the other way when he had to have known that Sandusky continued to have unsupervised contact with young boys through his football/charity biz.

    aimai

  110. 110.

    daveNYC

    @Mnemosyne:

    Again, I’m not getting why McQueary’s crime of reporting the assault to his boss is worse than that of the guys who covered it up. I’m really not.

    Reporting the assault to the boss, and not to the police (you know, the guys who normally do things like investigate crimes) was the first step of the coverup. And at least the people (using the term loosely) he reported it to could pretend that it wasn’t as bad as what he described. He, on the other hand, was an actual eyewitness to the event.

  111. 111.

    Culture of Truth

    Sharon Bialek, a former employee of the National Restaurant Association says Herman Cain put his hand on her leg and up her skirt, and then tried to pull her head toward his crotch. “You want a job, right?” she quoted him as saying.

  112. 112.

    JPL

    McQueary was 28 and his solution was to go the office and call his father. He might not be guilty of a crime, but if I were the President of a University, I certainly wouldn’t want him out recruiting.

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    So, again, McQueary is the bad guy here — not the administration that conspired to cover up his report, not the athletic department that continued to let Sandusky have access to children. Nope, McQueary is the bad actor and if only he’d done the right thing back in 2002, none of this would have happened.

    No wonder no one ever bothers to be a whistleblower. Not only do you get shit from the people you exposed, you get shit from the people who insist you didn’t do your report correctly and deserve to go down along with the people who actually committed the crimes.

  114. 114.

    Adolphus

    @101 The Moar You Know

    You left out the part where the “spectator” is a 29 year old former starting QB for a DIV I school.

    I agree TMYK. I can’t imagine I would ever be part of an organization that would so cow me with its power that I would hesitate for a second from at least attempting to stop a naked old man from buggering a 10 year old. At least calling the police. AT LEAST. That we are willing to excuse this “MAN’S” inaction by appealing to his perceived powerlessness in an organization like this tells me all I need to know about how we have acquiesced too far to the power and money of sports on college campuses. No organization or person within an organization should have this much power.

  115. 115.

    jayjaybear

    And it’s not as if Paterno couldn’t have MADE this a real investigation and purging of Sandusky if he actually gave a damn. Paterno is GOD in State College and on the University Park Campus. That is not an exaggeration. Paterno could easily have the University president fired if he really wanted it. It’s not like this is being sold, about a humble coach who just passed the information along to the proper authorities. Paterno has the clout to have actually made this report the A#1 priority of Campus Police and the State College DA.

    Joe Paterno is pretty much responsible for the rise of the University Park campus as the “Main Campus” of Penn State, and for the growth and prosperity of State College, because of the heights that he led the Nittany Lions. His word might as well be law in Centre County. And he did nothing.

  116. 116.

    PurpleGirl

    This list is from Wikipedia but seems to be comprehensive as to who is mandated to report knowledge of or observation of abuse. (Holding in mind the results of the McMartin case, but here we have an eye witness.)

    Mandatory Reporters
    In many US states, mandatory reporting requirements apply to all people in the state.

    In other states, mandated reporting requirements generally apply to staff members of a public or private institution or caregiving facility, as well as to a variety of public safety employees and medical professionals, or a public or private school responsible for the safety and well being of vulnerable persons. These generally include, but are not limited to the following:

    * Adult protective service employees* Caregivers
    * Child advocates* Child protective service employees
    * Chiropractors* Clergy* Summer Camp Counselors* Commercial Film and Photographics Print Processors [2]
    * Dentists and dental hygienists
    * Emergency medical service providers
    * Marital and family therapists
    * Mediators
    * Medical examiners
    * Mental health professionals
    * Nurses
    * Ombudsmen
    * Optometrists
    * Parole officers
    * Paralegal
    * Pharmacists
    * Physical therapists
    * Physician assistants
    * Physicians
    * Podiatrists
    * Police officers
    * Probation officers
    * Psychologists
    * Public health service providers responsible for the licensing or monitoring of child day care centers, long term care and nursing facilities, group day care homes, family day care homes, and youth camps
    * Professional counselors
    * Resident medical interns
    * School teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, paraprofessionals, and principals
    * Sexual assault and battered women’s counselors
    * Social workers
    * Substance abuse rehabilitation counselors
    * Undergrad or Graduate Level Students in the Human Services, Counseling, or Social Work fields

  117. 117.

    aimai

    No:

    He should never work with young people again, ever, because not stopping the assault is just as bad as actually raping someone.

    He should never work with young people again because not stopping the assault is evidence of poor judgement, moral cowardice, indifference to the suffering of a child, and inability to think on his feet. I wouldn’t hire anyone as a teacher or a coach who had demonstrated this utter lack of moral reasoning. Just like I wouldn’t hire someone to be a Nurse who’d stood by and watched someone die instead of staunching a wound.

    This really isn’t hard to understand–although you seem to be making it hard on yourself. There’s plenty of blame to go around. McQueary isn’t more culpable than than the actual rapist. But he is culpable in a distinct way because his job was an assistant coach and he continues to have that job so he needs to be able to think on his feet, protect his students and other children he may come in contact with–and, yes, he needs to be able to stand up to his own authority figures if it comes to that.

    aimai

  118. 118.

    eemom

    It is kind of heartbreaking to watch how some normally intelligent and rational people are twisting themselves into knots overthinking this.

    Mnem, why is it so important to you to talk about who is MORE blameworthy than someone else? I really don’t see that as the issue here.

    There is simply no way to excuse the behavior of an adult who sees another adult raping a child and does nothing to stop it, at a minimum, IMMEDIATELY calling 911. As others have said, that is the INSTANT response of any adult possessing any shred of human decency, with absolutely zero time to consider the “impact” on his or her career.

    Good Lord, would you be defending this guy in this same way if he’d seen Sandusky choking the kid to death?

  119. 119.

    Violet

    What if McQueary had never reported what he saw and we didn’t know he saw it. Where would this investigation be now?

  120. 120.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    McQueary’s inaction and continued relationship with PSU were wrong and he should go. But I’m reluctant to say that his failure to intervene says that much about his character. Hasn’t anyone heard of the Milgram experiment?

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    @JPL:

    He might not be guilty of a crime, but if I were the President of a University, I certainly wouldn’t want him out recruiting.

    The president of the university is strongly implicated in the cover up. Since he was perfectly okay allowing a known pedophile to continue having access to children on university property, I don’t think he has much room to get huffy about McQueary’s moral failings.

    To be clear, I’m not arguing that McQueary isn’t a moral midget. It’s just that, to me, his crimes pale in comparison to the chain of authority that goes all the way up to the president of the fucking university.

  122. 122.

    Svensker

    @Mnemosyne:

    Then convince 911 to come on campus without the permission of the campus police.

    Telling the cops that a child was being raped wouldn’t get them to respond?

  123. 123.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jibeaux:

    And yet the outrage is that two consenting adults want to formalize their relationship legally.

    Or that a women wants to have sex, but not get pregnant, so she uses contraceptives.

    Or that a business executive was rebuffed by a female subordinate who dared to turn down his offer to suck his pen1s, and threatened her continued employment if she did not.

    My outrage fatigue is getting close to terminal with all these serious outrages taking place.

  124. 124.

    Joel

    @Mnemosyne: I think you should put down the internet and walk away from this one. Every once in a while, someone talks themselves into a corner. Probably into a position they never imagined themselves getting into. Just a thought.

  125. 125.

    j

    Don’t know if this has been mentioned (I just got home & I’m catching up on the innertoobz) but

    Really? Outsource to Mrs. Norquist? How many sentences did it take for the firebaggers to blame this all on president Obama?

    3?

  127. 127.

    eemom

    @JPL:

    McQueary was 28 and his solution was to go the office and call his father.

    as a side note, that strikes me as pretty bizarre too. Evidently the dude had some serious issues of his own.

  129. 129.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    Mnem, why is it so important to you to talk about who is MORE blameworthy than someone else?

    Because this is reminding me way too strongly of the story from a week or two ago where people were more livid with the employee who stopped doing CPR at their supervisor’s orders than they were with the supervisor who ordered the employee to stop doing CPR.

    It feels like blaming McQueary — the one guy who did actually make an official report of any kind — helps justify the cover up.

  130. 130.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, hamhanded maker of strawmen in all shapes and sizes, McQueary is the bad man. The administration are the bad men. The athletic department are the bad men.

    See where I’m going with this?

    You aren’t this stupid. You are, however, completely revolting in the way you’re willfully lying about what everybody else is saying. I assure you that you’re the only one here who is remotely convinced by the pure crap that keeps coming out of your mouth, simply because you can’t acknowledge that your position was ill-conceived. You’re kind of reminding me of someone at a party who’s really hammered and suspects people are noticing, but is convinced that if he just stands really straight and continues to chat, no one will be the wiser.

    (Hilariously predictable Mnemosyne response: “So saying that someone reported a crime is the same as drinking yourself blind?”)

  131. 131.

    JPL

    Schultz and Curley bond was set at 75,000 and both had to turn over their passport. Sandusky only had 100,000 bond. Sounds as though Schultz and Curley had a good judge.

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

    @aimai:

    If you see a child going over a cliff and you don’t reach out and catch his arm you are, in fact, responsible for his death if you could have prevented it.

    Unfortunately, although you may be morally responsible, you are not legally responsible.

    If the facts of the case stand up, what the GA did was morally questionable. However, he did not commit a crime. The rapist committed a crime. Any who actively covered up the incident committed a crime. Any who lied about it committed a crime. Any law enforcement authorities who failed to investigate the complaint diligently may have committed a crime.

    (Also, the reaching out thing is a bad analogy. There was a recent situation in California where people tried to prevent a person from going over a falls and were dragged over themselves.)

  134. 134.

    Emma

    @stormhit: A ten-year-old child wasn’t “having sex”. HE WAS BEING RAPED. And I don’t know about you but let’s just say I can tell the difference between two (or more) adults having consensual sex and a grown man raping a child.

  135. 135.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne:

    You are arguing with voices in your head. Holding McQueary accountable for his own failures is simply what it is. Lots of us could have been in McQueary’s position–that’s the point we are making. He was passing by while a child was raped. And he didn’t call an ambulance, or the child’s parents, or retrieve the child from his abuser.That’s just its own crime. That’s just its own failure of the moral community.

    It has nothing to do with the total failure of the University and the Sports team which is evident and ongoing–a failure which as everyone has noted is quite common in large institutions and specifically Universities. Harvard University, for example, always had a custom of diverting rape and assault accusations away from the “real” police and into the Harvard mediation system. In addition they very carefully only allow reports of on campus incidents to be counted and disseminated. This prevents parents and students from knowing about the real crime rates as they apply to students because something that happens on the street in front of your dorm is not reported as having happened “on Harvard Property.”

    What I’m trying to say is that there are issues of moral culpability and what you might call moral blame shifting that apply to this case because its happening in a total institution like a University/Prison/School/Mental Hospital. We aren’t talking about those. We are talking about the fact that a single individual was presented with a really classic up or down question:

    You see a violent act committed against a child. At no physical cost to yourself you could rescue him. What do you do?

    Most of us would want to see that question answered, for ourselves and for people in positions of authority, with an unqualified “I’d do something.” McQueary answered that question with “I’ll call my dad and hope someone else intervenes before I have to embarrass coach Sandusky.”

    aimai

  136. 136.

    Cluttered Mind

    Considering that the campus police were involved in this coverup, and McQueary likely knew that everyone in the school’s hierarchy would cover for the rapist (since that’s what they did end up doing), is it really that surprising that he was hesitant to physically involve himself when he saw what he saw? Anyone who says “I would have charged in no matter what” is saying something noble, but ignoring the fact that it’s entirely likely that if McQueary HAD tried to physically intervene, it would have been McQueary who got arrested and charged with something, and the end result would have been the same except that the rape of the kid which was already in progress would have stopped a little sooner. And McQueary’s career and possibly his life would have been ruined right along with the kid’s. When the police are on the side of the criminals, attempting to physically prevent or protest a crime is very dangerous. I would have hoped that the events of the past month vis a vis the Occupy movement would have made that abundantly clear. Maybe McQueary could have done more to try to get the rapist prosecuted, but who among us can say for certain what his bosses threatened him with? You all seem to assume he was bribed to stay quiet with promotions and job security, but has anyone stopped to consider what the cost would have been to him if he’d rejected that offer?

    Ridiculing him for calling his father is likewise pretty stupid. He was in a situation where he knew that any word he breathed about it to anyone around him would have severe and unknowable consequences. I’d have called my parents for advice in that kind of situation too. All this righteous indignation is missing the point. McQueary does deserve some of the blame for the coverup, but calling him some sort of despicable human being for not immediately charging to the kid’s rescue despite the fact that campus police would automatically believe what the rapist said over him is out of bounds. Some people instinctively react to situations like that by intervening, and some people retreat immediately and think over their response before acting. You can’t call someone a coward for not taking an action that they were probably convinced would be self-destructive and have no gain except sparing the kid who was already being raped from having it go on as long as it did. He DID report the rape, and we know what happened after that. His actions in the years following what he saw might be questionable, but I see nothing wrong with what he did that day with the knowledge he had.

  137. 137.

    PurpleGirl

    I haven’t read the thread after comment #44 or so. But I don’t think anyone above that mentioned mandatory reporting laws. Now bearing in mind the McMartin case and its results, which I don’t think apply here because there was personal knowledge of the abuse, I think that everyone involved had a duty to report the child rape to the authorities. And if not the police, then Childrens Protective Services (or equivalent agency in PA).

    From Wikipedia, a general discussion of who is mandated to report abuse:

    In many US states, mandatory reporting requirements apply to all people in the state.

    In other states, mandated reporting requirements generally apply to staff members of a public or private institution or caregiving facility, as well as to a variety of public safety employees and medical professionals, or a public or private school responsible for the safety and well being of vulnerable persons.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandated_reporter

    There is a list of the category of workers who must report abuse, but it is very long and I couldn’t reformat it to take out extra lines of space.

  138. 138.

    Violet

    @Svensker:

    Telling the cops that a child was being raped wouldn’t get them to respond?

    Not necessarily in a university setting. Campus police are often called in first, even if 911 is called on a campus. It’s a confusing situation and can be a big problem. I think the universities don’t want the cops called every time a student passes out drunk or whatever (don’t want the bad publicity) and the over-worked police and fire departments don’t want the hassle either. The result is often that the campus security/police go check things out first.

  139. 139.

    Nutella

    There’s only one hero in this disgusting mess: The mother who reported Sandusky to the police in 1998. She’s the only one over the years who tried to stop him. She had the entire State College establishment against her so she only succeeded in protecting her own son, but she tried.

    The police, prosecutors, and foundation management all knew what was going on in 1998 and didn’t do a damn thing to stop him. McQueary saw a violent crime in progress and didn’t even call 911. Reporting it a day later didn’t help the victim. Paterno and the rest of PSU management covered up for a child rapist. They’re all moral degenerates.

  140. 140.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne: Not one person here has justified the cover-up or any other participant in the cover-up in any way. Not one. So your “it feels like” is pure and total bullshit, a failed attempt to provide cover for your by now completely over-the-top comment stylings.

  141. 141.

    Suffern ACE

    @Mnemosyne:

    So any witness to a crime who doesn’t follow up to make sure a prosecution happens should be charged with a crime for not following up?

    I am not certain what the law in PA is at the time, but in the case of child sexual abuse as it stands now in PA, educators (including coaches) have 48 hours to report to police, either directly or through the administration. This leaves a window for that situation where the witness is in shock and what have you. Basically, you have 48 hours to get over it, which seems fair.

    The law, however, does not require you to find a crow bar or some other instrument to bludgeon someone to death. There may be a reason for that oversight.

  142. 142.

    aimai

    @Brachiator:

    Fuck off. I’ve never been talking about legal responsibility and I never said that McQueary had a legal responsibility. I’ve always discussed the moral responsibility. And he did have that.

    aimai

  144. 144.

    Cluttered Mind

    @eemom: I’m 28, and when I’m faced with a crisis situation where absolutely no one in the immediate vicinity would be appropriate to speak to for advice, I find a private area and call my parents too. Are you going to tell me I have some sort of issues too? It’s a good thing when people have close bonds with their parents and trust the advice they give, not something to be mocked.

  145. 145.

    geg6

    @aimai:

    I agree, aimai. In fact, I’d add Graham Spanier to the list of people directly responsible for allowing children to be raped over a period of years. No way this shit went on without Spanier knowing, especially since we know that when they finally did ban Sandusky from using university facilities, he would have had to sign off on it. Can you imagine signing off on something like this and not even asking why?

    I am embarrassed to be even tangentially connected to these people. The whole administration has to go. Students are asking for Spanier to resign. The students are correct.

  146. 146.

    aimai

    I’d call my parents if I had a knotty question in physics, or poetry–but not if a boy was being buggered in front of my eyes. There really wouldn’t be time for that.

    aimai

  147. 147.

    West of the Cascades

    @aimai: sorry if I suggested that, because I agree with you 100% – McQueary should have reacted at the time in some way that stopped the rape. Period. Physical assault, or yelling “stop it!” or calling 911 or some combination. Not just calling his dad and reporting it to his superiors. My comments have mostly been responding to someone disagreeing that he should resign/be fired because he never did anything about the failure of the system he reported to (a system he took a job in), for eight years, letting Sandusky continue his predation during that additional period.

  148. 148.

    eemom

    @Cluttered Mind:

    it’s entirely likely that if McQueary HAD tried to physically intervene, it would have been McQueary who got arrested and charged with something

    now THAT is fucking insanity, pure and simple.

    Go ahead, though. Tell us how that “entirely likely” would have been the result in whatever universe you inhabit.

  149. 149.

    Emma

    @Mnemosyne: Stop it. Please. You’re usually better than this. Nobody’s saying the others shouldn’t be punished. We’re saying McQueary failed a basic human test.

    If you were a parent, would you entrust your child to a man who, seeing a child being raped, walks away and calls his Dad?

  150. 150.

    Adolphus

    @118 Thoroughly Puzzled

    I have heard of the Milgram Experiment. In that experiment people were following an authority figure who was present and giving orders to shock a person who was a distant voice. In this case there was a ten year old getting butt fucked by a 50 year old man with not other authority figure present. Similar but not the same.

    And it isn’t like I don’t have some sympathy for McQueary. I have been in similar situations, though none so extreme. The decision in the moment of what to do is hard. Very hard. Most people (at least those not in the service) likely go through their entire lives never having to make this type of life or death decision in the moment and it is possible to misinterpret and overreact and either way there are momentous consequences for you and the others involved. Grown ups with a moral compass should be able navigate that path and make a decision and live with the consequences either way.

    But when it happens, you either step up or you don’t and he didn’t. And he continued to work for the organization (and get promoted within) that continued to harbor someone he saw with his own eyes butt fuck a 10 year old kid.

    Others here are clearly MORE culpable. I am not even sure McQueary broke any laws or rules. I just don’t know how he looks at himself in the mirror in the morning.

    I have no idea if I would ever hire him to be a position of power over others. Depending on the circumstances he may be MORE likely to stick up for the powerless than others who have not been tested. But he’d have some explaining to do.

  151. 151.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    Again, I have no problem with McQueary being held morally responsible for what he didn’t do. I don’t know how the guy slept at night in the intervening time between his initial report and his testimony to the grand jury, but given that he apparently came clean with the grand jury says to me that he knows he did the wrong thing when this first happened.

    What I have a problem with is the people who say that he should be convicted of … something … for not following up. Or insisting that he should lose his job before everyone else in the line of command who ignored his report.

    I think the reason people are reacting so strongly is that McQueary is the one guy in this story whose shoes we can put ourselves into. I think very few people here are able to think “hmm, what would I do if I found out one of my long-time subordinates was committing crimes that would reflect badly on my company/university?” but we can easily picture ourselves in a situation when we witness a terrible crime and judge McQueary based on what we would do if we found ourselves in that situation even though you can never be totally sure until the situation actually happens.

    McQueary = moral midget. Paterno = moral monster. I think the monster should be judged and punished more harshly than the midget.

  153. 153.

    Angela

    I think McQuery is an easy target. Yes, he should have done more. No question. And he did do something. How long did Sandusky have access to this shower room? I doubt that the janitor and McQuery are the only ones who saw sexual assault on a minor happen. Without McQuery’s credible testimony what would the grand jury have returned?

    For some, it’s too little too late. OK, I can see that. For me, it’s better late than never. These victims most likely will see their abuser go to jail. That makes me very happy.

    In the press conference, the PA state AG Linda Kelly indicated it was, in part, McQueery’s credible testimony that led to these charges. And from what I understand she explained of the reporting requirement, the responsibility for reporting was on the Penn State administrators. Which is why they are being charged with failure to report.

  154. 154.

    Suffern ACE

    @aimai: O.K. but you are taking the easy one. There is another situation in the testimony a few years later. Coach of a high school football program sees the light on in the weight room and walks in on Sandusky and another boy “practising wrestling moves.” Thinks it odd, but doesn’t do anything.

    What’s your crowbar gonna do for you there?

  155. 155.

    Satanicpanic

    I was once a witness to something I thought might be life or death for someone and it’s tough to know what to do, especially when you’re not expecting it. I ended up calling a friend and saying “dude, what do I do?” His answer was “uh, call the police, dumbass.” So I did. It wasn’t profiles in courage, but in my defense, I could very well have made it much worse because I’m not trained to intervene in what looked like a domestic abuse situation. Anyway, I can understand maybe not immediately rushing Sandusky, but given a few minutes to come up with a plan (and someone to run it by on the telephone!), McQuery could have done better than just running away. Call the police at the very least.

  159. 159.

    jibeaux

    @Cluttered Mind:

    Well, if you’d have called me, as your loving mother, I have said

    ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THAT YOU, A GROWN-ASS MAN, LEFT A CHILD RAPE IN PROGRESS? WHAT THE HOLY FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

  160. 160.

    Cluttered Mind

    @eemom: How about the universe where black people who try to intervene to stop crimes get arrested along with the criminals when the cops show up EVERY SINGLE DAY in this country? You have no sense of how the world really works. This man was in a position where every lever of power would have been moved to protect the rapist, and intervening would have resulted in all that power coming down on his head, and the rapist probably still getting off free.

  161. 161.

    aimai

    I am more sympathetic to McQueary after the assault than during–because I believe that an African American junior coach had a lot more to risk–even false imprisonment and counter lawsuits–than a similarly situated white junior coach. Frankly, once he allowed Sandusky to escape with the evidence (naked sobbing boy) and allowed himself into being frightened into only being a witness after the fact he had a very weak situation legally and socially. He had no leverage vis a vis his superiors or Sandusky and any form of informal reporting/warning would have been dangerous to him without having the slightest effect on Sandusky’s continued predations.

    But that doesn’t excuse his fright and his immoral backing away from helping the child at the time. Again–a call to get an ambulance and an EMT to the sports center would not have been ignored and a rape kit could have been processed. Then it wouldn’t have been all in the realm of he said/he said.

    aimai

  162. 162.

    j

    @Loneoak: Sure there is. Just pull their NCAA certification. Boot them out of the Big 10 (which is really the Bigger 12)end ALL of their athletic programs for at least 25 years and sell the stadium for scrap metal.

    Then name the hole in the ground after Joe the schmuck.

    They can do what the University of Chicago did. END the athletic department and concentrate on becoming a Nobel factory.

  163. 163.

    Cluttered Mind

    I will say that waiting an entire day to report the rape is completely mind-boggling though. I can understand withdrawing immediately from the scene to try to process what you just saw and figure out the best thing to do, but not taking an entire day to actually do it. After he realized what was going on he should have at the very least made an anonymous call to 911 for an ambulance or something. I can understand and sympathize with him not wanting to get involved directly given the situation, but he shouldn’t have just let the whole day go by without doing SOMETHING.

  165. 165.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    Two-thirds of the population will electrocute someone to death if a man in a lab coat tells them to. Obedience to authority is a very powerful instinct.

  167. 167.

    aimai

    @Suffern ACE:

    I’m not sure what your point is? If McQueary had only seen some greco roman wrestling I absolutely wouldn’t fault him for not being sure about what he’d seen, or failing to report it until the next day. My opinion is entirely conditioned by the fact that he reported that he’d seen the actual rape while it was in progress. This is a totally different situation than the other previous poster’s experience of witnessing a case of potential “domestic violence” which remains a grey area in people’s experience of when/how to intervene. The sexual molestation of a child is definitionally not a grey area. If he saw the actual rape, and knew it was a rape, his situation is distinct from that of the later coach who was “not sure” what he saw. Even though, of course, wrestlign and football are two utterly different sports and he’s got to be fuckin’ kidding if he pretends he didn’t know something was wrong.

    aimai

  168. 168.

    Emma

    I give up. I really do. All the “it’s tough to make a decision.” No, in this case, it really isn’t. If you see two adults having a argument that’s escalating towards violence, and one seems to be getting out of control, you may have a question or two. ADULTS. If you walk into two adults having sex, even if it looks a little rough, but there’s no blood on the floor and someone isn’t screaming bloody murder, you might say to yourself “I don’t know if it’s consensual or not”. ADULTS.

    Walking in on an adult having anal sex with a ten year old? Nope. Not difficult at all.

  169. 169.

    Ruckus

    @jibeaux:
    Have to agree with this. For somethings you just have to get involved. Cost to the assistant? What about the cost to the 10 year old? What about the cost to the other 10 year olds? This is the same as the catholic church coverup. Some knew and reported it and years and how many other children later maybe a grand jury hears conflicting testimony.
    You want kids to grow up not being scarred fucked up for life? Stop the behavior that causes it. You don’t do that by standing by and hoping the system works it all out.

  170. 170.

    Cluttered Mind

    @aimai: I think we’re in agreement on everything except what he should have done at the exact moment he saw the rape, then. I can’t speak to his state of mind at that point so I can’t really say what he should or shouldn’t have done. People react differently when they see stuff like that.

  171. 171.

    Adolphus

    @ Satanicpanic

    Domestic disturbances have been my experience, too. When two adults are yelling obscenities it can sometimes be hard to know what to do. When two adults are trading blows, the call is harder. When one person is beating on another less difficult, but I have called police (I am not a big guy) and gotten rocks thrown at me by the female “victims” for my trouble. I was even the target of police “scrutiny” after calling them and woman forgave her man before the cops showed up.

    Like I said above. It is difficult and easy to have some empathy for McQueary.

    But this wasn’t two adults. This was a naked 50 year old man and naked 10 year old kid. Even if they aren’t touching, how do you not walk in and ask what’s going on. And since the adult is butt fucking the kid, how can that be misinterpreted? And even if there is some gray area, how do you err on the side of NOT intervening in such a situation.

  172. 172.

    JPL

    The Washington Post has a good column

    After what allegedly happened to “Victim 2,” a boy estimated to be 10 years old, in the same room where Penn State football players shower, it’s near impossible to keep reading the grand jury’s report. By “Victim 8,” numbness turns to anger…………………………………..
    You want to scream at the traumatized graduate assistant coach in 2002 and janitor in 2000 who saw and didn’t stop it, according to the report released by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. You want to grab hold of and shake those who reported the crime only to their superiors, washed their hands of responsibility and then let it go, treating a kid’s life as if it were a football that slipped through their hands.

  173. 173.

    scav

    By 28, if you don’t know to report something that disturbing to the police (even if there’s the possibility that some of the police are corrupt) but have to call your Dad to check, well, that’s a pretty defective moral compass you’ve got installed and your parents may not have done quite the job raising you they should have. Calling Dad afterward for advice, sure, work out some of the details. But, “Eek eek, burning building! Call Dad to see if I should call the Fire Dept!” is odd.

  174. 174.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Ruckus: You may be willing to potentially ruin your entire life and career to save a 10 year old you don’t know who has already suffered the traumatic experience you’re trying to halt. Not everyone is. Not every 28 year old is. People are making this out to be a far simpler decision than it really is.

  175. 175.

    Rorgg

    @ajr22:

    Amen to that. Also, apparently, he approved of the action taken, which was to tell Sandusky, “don’t bring any more kids by here.”

    GAH. Degenerates, the lot of them.

  176. 176.

    aimai

    @Cluttered Mind:

    That’s precisely where we disagree. I have been around a lot of kids over the past 16 years, since I have a 15 year old and a 12 year old. I have never, ever, met anyone at any event including kids that would turn away from a child who was in tears over a broken toy, let alone screaming in pain from being raped. There’s such a thing as straight up human instinct. I don’t even get how McQueary had time to run away rather than run towards the situation. I’ve been in a fucking earthquake and I had time enough to grab the nearest child before I sprinted to safety. People don’t routinely run away from scary things when they are the only person there. It actually takes a very strange and cowardly person to turn away from a screaming child and run far and fast enough to get advice from a third party.

    aimai

  177. 177.

    shortstop

    @Cluttered Mind:

    You may be willing to potentially ruin your entire life and career to save a 10 year old you don’t know who has already suffered the traumatic experience you’re trying to halt.

    You really just said this, didn’t you?

  178. 178.

    Cluttered Mind

    @scav: You’re comparing apples to oranges. A burning building is very different from this situation. This powerless young man saw a very powerful and influential older man doing something illegal and completely repugnant, in the location that is the seat of his power and where the laws are enforced by people who respect and look up to him. It is not an easy thing to ask him to immediately charge in.

  179. 179.

    My Truth Hurts

    What else do we expect in a culture like ours that values sports more than academics or honesty or intelligence? This is not just Penn States problem this is America’s problem.

  181. 181.

    Nutella

    Apparently there was one person involved in the coverup who actually had a conscience:

    The local district attorney, who for unknown reasons decided not to press charges [in 1998], disappeared in 2005 and was declared legally dead in July).

  182. 182.

    aimai

    I also think that people are misunderstanding the Milgrom experiment and the psychological record on this one. McQueary was not in a situation in which “an authority” came into play at all. And there was no crowd of people among whom to diffuse responsibility. In the Milgrom Experiment the experimenters actually had to work very hard to normalize the situation and to lead the volunteers to continue, as they saw it, injuring the experimental subject. McQueary was not actually injuring anyone and there was no one–until long after the incident–helping him normalize or naturalize what was going on. He faced a simple, straight, up and down decision: help a child or walk away. He had enough of a guilty conscience to call his father rather than to hide the entire thing but, to my mind, that’s just because he didn’t have the moral courage even of his own lack of courage and he shifted decisionmaking to his father and later to other authorities. Only at that point, after he left the sports center and called his father, do the Milgrom experiment and other such experiments seem like they become good analogies.

  183. 183.

    Cluttered Mind

    @aimai: I probably would have found a place nearby to call 911 before I did anything else. I probably wouldn’t have charged in immediately. I say probably because without actually having been in a situation like that, I honestly can never know how I’d react. It’s entirely possible that you’re right about the human instinct thing and all of this debate is just academic and will never get to the heart of it, but the fact that he didn’t do it alone should be enough to show that not everyone is going to automatically react that way.

  184. 184.

    Adolphus

    @Thoroughly Puzzled

    Two-thirds of the population will electrocute someone to death if a man in a lab coat tells them to. Obedience to authority is a very powerful instinct.

    But there was no authority present to obey. Your example is close but not on point. Unless you are saying, and you and others probably are, that even the specter of JoePa and PennState football’s authority was so strong in this situation that it stopped a 28 year old, former star football player from stopping a 50 year old man from sodomizing a 10 year old and it was as if they were in that room issuing orders to turn away.

    And you know what you may be right. If that is the case, than I don’t know how you don’t conclude that such an organization is inherently evil as is the complicity of anyone who knew of this situation. Not and not do away with free will altogether.

    And so what if 2/3 of adults would do the same. That lessens the moral culpability of that 2/3 not one iota. Not when it comes to walking away from such a depravity.

  186. 186.

    burnspbesq

    There was a time when the entire world believed that the McMartin family were serial child abusers. Remind me again how many convictions were obtained as a result of what at the time was the longest and most expensive criminal investigation in the history of the State of California.

    None of us know shit about what may or may not have happened. Anyone pretending to know is an idiot or a fool, or both.

  188. 188.

    aimai

    @Cluttered Mind:

    You don’t have children or have never heard a child cry, have you? Because there’s no naked old wrinkly man in the “seat of his power” who could keep most of us from helping that child–even if later we wished we hadn’t because the consequences were so bad.

    aimai

  189. 189.

    Brachiator

    @aimai:

    Fuck off. I’ve never been talking about legal responsibility and I never said that McQueary had a legal responsibility. I’ve always discussed the moral responsibility. And he did have that.

    What is wrong with you?

    You said this without qualifying legal vs moral culpability.

    If you see a child going over a cliff and you don’t reach out and catch his arm you are, in fact, responsible for his death if you could have prevented it.

    You seem to want to get involved into some strange grudge match with Mnemosyne and others. There is no point in trying to bait me. And it makes you strangely look like a fool to attack me when I agree with you more than disagree with you.

    You are usually more reasonable, but here you seem intent on going off the deep end, for no real point.

  190. 190.

    Samara Morgan

    this site is devolving…i guess it is losing its collective mind.
    rage-raving on McQueary while NOT rage-raving on Sandusky, Paterno, the whole collusion to let Sandusky keep abusing kids and hush everything up.
    typical

    and aimai is the leader of the pack.
    awesome.

  191. 191.

    Kola Noscopy

    Jesus Christ, the selective BJ pearl clutchers are drooling all over themselves, turgid with pleasurable outrage at this abomination of alleged GAY SEX and its implications for the end of life as we know it.

    You hypocrites, Cole at the head of the line, have NOOOOOOO IDEA (as Miss M would say) what the hell you’re talking about or what the hell happened, as per usual. But also as per usual, your detailed discussions about what you don’t know but are horrified at continue unabated, nevertheless.

    Is it possible, Cole, that you nether regions are a-tinglin’ and that is the source of your obsession with this story?

    As UCT has made clear, Juicers are A-OK with presidential murder and mayhem all over the globe, even when it kills children, but let someone allege cross generational diddling here in America, and all hell breaks loose. What a joke you people are.

  192. 192.

    scav

    @shortstop: Technically true, it explains the existence of certain hard-core greed-is-good hedge fund managers. ClutteredMind is clearly willing and finds it perfectly natural to cede his/her moral obligations when faced with the actions of very powerful and influential older men — it might have personal consequences if actions were taken. Personal benefit trump other quaint considerations. And that’s hunky-dory to his/her mind as best I can tell.

  195. 195.

    My Truth Hurts

    Football was more important to these assholes than the health an welfare of those abused children. Sick, sick, sick.

  196. 196.

    Cluttered Mind

    @aimai: Regarding comment 180, it’s never possible to know what is going through someone else’s head, but the fact that he left the entire sports center building before doing anything at all shows that he was probably pretty scared. It’s easy to sit back at a computer screen and mock people for cowardice, but real terror is something that isn’t all that easy to face up to, and many people can’t do it. That said, whatever terror he might have been dealing with was almost certainly nothing compared to that of the kid, so I can’t really muster up all THAT much sympathy for him, even if I understand why he did it. If I seem to be coming down on all sides of this issue, it’s because I’ve been thinking about it hard over the past 20 minutes and trying to consider everything that’s being said, and it really is a lot to ponder.

  197. 197.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kola Noscopy:

    So has your NAMBLA card come in the mail yet? I’m not sure why else you would defend a 50-year-old man having anal sex with a 10-year-old boy as mere “cross generational diddling” that certainly shouldn’t lead to criminal charges.

  199. 199.

    geg6

    @Mnemosyne:

    If you get raped on campus, the campus police will take your report, not the local cops, and most of the time they’ll keep it within the university’s discipline system and not make a criminal complaint if the assaulter is a student or campus employee.

    This is patently untrue. University police on my campus make criminal complaints outside of the university all the fucking time. No one brought university police (actual officers, not the vice president of business and finance who oversees them) into it at all since 1998.

  200. 200.

    tavella

    I’m with Mnemosyne: a whole bunch of you are playing internet tough guy. You are all quite, quite sure that you would have been the grand heroes, instantly acting without doubt and hesitation. Real world evidence indicates that a few of you would; many others of you would have run away rather than confront. Some of those would have called police; some of those would have gone to someone else in the department like the GA; some would have said nothing, like the janitor.

    You do not know how you will act in a crisis until you act, and it turns out that most of us are way the fuck less good and aggressive than we think we should be. Most people think they wouldn’t torture someone to death with electricity just because someone with a clipboard and a white coat said it was for science. It turns out that only a very very few of us will not, without training.

    I’d hope I would act; I’d like to think I would act, being an aggressive person. But I am not such an egoist that I *know*, and neither do all of you, unless you have actually done it.

  201. 201.

    shortstop

    @Brachiator: Do a search for the word “moral” in this thread. Read every post of aimai’s that comes up as a result of that search. I think if you had read the thread to begin with, you wouldn’t have held forth on moral vs. legal responsibility as though you were helpfully explaining the difference to her.

  202. 202.

    aimai

    @Cluttered Mind:

    Correct–McQueary was a moral coward who didn’t have the strength to do what an ordinary, humane, person would have done. The fact that the world contains such people isn’t proof that this is the normal/right thing to do. Its proof that for all its vaunted bragging Sports and athletic instruction in this country produces some staggeringly weak minded and weak moraled people.

    Way upthread Soonergrunt pointed out that he’s actually be trained to run into a hail of bullets. Well what the fuck was McQueary trained for that in an instant, faced with a clear cut moral imperative–save a child–he turned tail and ran? Again, its not like this is never going to happen again in his life–he’s a god damned coach. He’s going to be working with teens, football fans, and pedophiles who circle around the bait for the rest of his life. And he didn’t “know what to do” at Twenty Fucking Eight?

    aimai

  203. 203.

    The Dangerman

    Are we filling out a bracket as to when Paterno quietly retires? It’s long overdue regardless of this fucking mess, but he’s done one way or another.

  204. 204.

    Angela

    @aimai: Why do you think there are laws for mandatory reporting? I believe that you would intervene in a situation like this, I know I would too because I have. But the reality is that most of the people you think would intervene would not. Call your police departments victims advocates and ask them what their experience is. Most people look away. Most people don’t report. That is why laws for mandatory reporting were passed.

  206. 206.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Adolphus:

    I don’t know how you don’t conclude that such an organization is inherently evil as is the complicity of anyone who knew of this situation.

    That is indeed my conclusion, thanks for stating it succinctly.

  207. 207.

    eemom

    @burnspbesq:

    oh fer fucks sake, burns — that is a RIDICULOUS comparison. These people were EYEWITNESSES to a CRIME IN PROGRESS, not deranged shrinks trying to get little kids to “remember” things that never happened. Come the fuck on.

  208. 208.

    Cluttered Mind

    @tavella: That’s pretty much what I’ve been trying to say. Consider yourself fortunate that you haven’t had your remarks referred to as total idiocy or accused of having issues with your parents yet.

  210. 210.

    Catsy

    I am not wading neck-deep into this–I have work to do. Y’all are having enough fun arguing without me posting a string of my usual page-long manifestos anyway.

    But I will say this: as a parent of a 10-year-old boy, and for that matter as a human being with a functioning conscience, I have no words to adequately describe the soulless apologia that has been crapped out all over this thread. Some people are apparently willing to bend over backwards and sideways to come up with explanations and scenarios for why McQueary shouldn’t be morally faulted for walking away from a grown man ass-raping a 10-year-old boy without doing something to interrupt the rape–but can’t seem to devote even a fraction of that mental energy for imagining why walking away was the wrong choice.

    This issue is comparable to torture: you either get why it’s fundamentally wrong or you don’t, and your answer to the question and how hard you argue for the wrong answer says a lot about the condition of your moral compass. As well as whether you have any business being trusted with the well-being of children.

  212. 212.

    aimai

    @tavella:

    That’s just not true. People act morally all the time–essentially without thinking. McQueary’s problem is that he stopped to think. He ran away and by putting himself at arm’s length of the problem he put it so far out of his control that he no longer had any responsibility. If he’d run into the room he would have done the right thing and devil take the hindmost.

    But again, this isn’t hypothetical at all. I’ve seen plenty of people run towards an injured child. I’ve never seen anyone run away. Ever. You’d have to have a massive ego to even begin to think about yourself and your social situation in a case where a child is being raped before your eyes.

    aimai

  213. 213.

    Cluttered Mind

    @aimai: In this particular case I am going to have to concede the argument and say that you’re right. In light of the context of what job McQueary had and was aspiring to, namely being a coach and working with younger people, the fact that he didn’t intervene when seeing something like that shows that he was in the wrong line of work. I’m pretty sure no one would want their children in the care of someone who would run away when they see a kid being raped, regardless of the circumstances. As much as I understand his response and can empathize with it…he made a bad decision that day. Being able to understand why he did it doesn’t make it any less the wrong one. Thanks for engaging me in thoughtful discussion about this, instead of just attacking me. Was a nice way to break up the day.

  214. 214.

    Cluttered Mind

    @eemom: Ah, the old “age equals experience and maturity” argument. I’m not the one who started flinging poo on the internet as soon as someone challenged my beautiful mind.

  215. 215.

    aimai

    @Angela:

    Mandatory reporting is different from intervening. McQueary did report, in a sense–but he had a chance that most teachers, nurses, etc… are not given which is to actually be present at a criminal incident. We aren’t really talking about mandatory reporting at all–McQueary reported. We are talking about a fairly rare situation–that he was present at the commission of an unmistakeable crime.

    I’d like to point out that my own beef with McQueary as a coach is that he is a mandatory reporter who has shown that his first instinct was not to intervene. That is, he is still in a position of authority and respect with vulnerable juveniles but he doesn’t have the moral backbone to safeguard them. If he saw one of his students raping another would he intervene? Or would he run off to call his father again?

    aimai

  216. 216.

    Jennifer

    I’m generally not a fan of defining people based on their worst moments, but I’ll make an exception in this case: if you personally witness an old man ass-raping a young boy and do nothing to try to stop it, pretty much nothing else about your character matters.

  217. 217.

    Samara Morgan

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): why do you say that?
    what i pointed out is true. 75% of the comments are the juicitariat brawling over McQueary’s moral compass.
    jaysus, there was a twenty year conspiracy to let the perp molest kids, and all kinda higher ups were hip deep in it.
    He had a fucking FOUNDATION where he “groomed” his victims.
    Cole linked a great article on that, and the juicitariat, led by the esteemed aimai, is chihuahua packing McQueary?

    awesome.

  218. 218.

    Mnemosyne

    @Catsy:

    Some people are apparently willing to bend over backwards and sideways to come up with explanations and scenarios for why McQueary shouldn’t be morally faulted from walking away from a grown man ass-raping a 10-year-old boy without doing something to interrupt the rape …

    No, we’re saying that McQueary should not be criminally faulted for not physically intervening, and that having the same people who actively covered up Sandusky’s crimes fire McQueary for his moral failings would be a joke.

  220. 220.

    Cluttered Mind

    Just as a clarification, I’ve never once been attempting to justify what McQueary did on a MORAL level, just on an emotional and intellectual one. Some people aren’t able to unify the three as easily as other people can, and in a lot of cases they’re in direct opposition. I wholeheartedly agree that the moral thing to do in this situation would have been to grab the kid and get him away from the rapist by any means necessary. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always make it easy to do the moral thing.

  221. 221.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Samara Morgan:

    this site is devolving…i guess it is losing its collective mind.
    rage-raving on McQueary while NOT rage-raving on Sandusky, Paterno, the whole collusion to let Sandusky keep abusing kids and hush everything up.

    Heh, I too think it’s rather revealing that the youngest, least powerful and I believe only non white male involved in this sordid tale is coming in for by far the worst rage.

  223. 223.

    Adolphus

    One thing in regard to JoePa that no one has consider, or at least I haven’t seen it.

    Maybe he is just a senile old coot and has been for a very long time and the entire Penn State organization has been trying to shield him since long before this incident. He literally phone in his game day coaching. He sits up there in the booth, rarely talking to anyone.

    Maybe he is a doddering old fool and has been for a decade or more.

  225. 225.

    aimai

    @Cluttered Mind:

    I wanted to make clear that I agree with you about the race/class issues. Just because I know that I would intervene doesn’t mean that I think every kind of person would/could intervene. Even though I prefaced my first remark by saying that I am a short, middle aged woman it would have been more honest to say that I am a short, white, upper class, not interested in sports woman. So if I were to see a famous sports figure molesting a boy I’d fuck that sucker up in a heartbeat and tear his dick out by the roots–because my experience of the world is such that I know I’d have the literal and metaphoric upper hand when the cops came. But I know that is not the case for everyone and I wouldn’t fault an illegal immigrant janitor and I can see the terror factor for McQueary. But I can’t forgive it under the circumstances.–And would we stop being sympathetic to McQueary qua black man if the boy being raped were black? What then of his duty to help?

    aimai

  227. 227.

    Jennifer

    @bin Lurkin’: Yeah, and just coincidentally, the ONLY one who had the opportunity to step in and stop a crime in progress. Yep, all the BJ commenters here are just a bunch of racists for pointing out the guy’s culpability.

    Jesus, what a twit.

  231. 231.

    eemom

    @bin Lurkin’:

    That is just flat-out bullshit. The whole argument started because some felt the need to defend the guy. NOBODY was singling him out for “the worst rage,” and it’s been said dozens of times that he does NOT deserve the same level of blame as his superiors.

  232. 232.

    Satanicpanic

    @Adolphus: I agree, but I can’t really fault him for calling his dad because if you’re all by yourself walking through an empty building it’s possible you’d need a minute or two to go “wait, what did I just see?” Or someone to run it by just to reassure yourself you haven’t gone nuts. I’m not trying to make excuses for him, I’m just saying I don’t begrudge him a minute or two to think about what to do.

  233. 233.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne:

    But that’s wrong. Because firing McQueary for being a bad choice for coach now has nothing to do with the coverup. As long as the sports program is continuing a new stream of actors and players and students and families are coming through those doors. They deserve to have coaches who have demonstrated some kind of moral fiber, some kind of leadership skills, and some kind of knowledge of their duty towards their charges and towards injured bystanders. That’s true whether or not the supervisors are the same corrupt bastards higher up the chain of command.

    Again, and for the last time because I have to go, no one has argued that McQueary is legally accountable or that he should be fired because its legally the right thing to do. I think he should be terminated as a coach because he’s a terrible person–he was weak before he watched a crime being committed and he probable isn’t any better now. This has nothing to do with whether Sankusky and Paterno should receive the Chair. Which, for all of me, the state may give them.

    I know its really hard for you to let go of your straw men, Mnemosyne. But you are really just embarrassing yourself at this point. I know you can do better.

    aimai

  234. 234.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m not sure why else you would defend a 50-year-old man having anal sex with a 10-year-old boy as mere “cross generational diddling” that certainly shouldn’t lead to criminal charges.

    Blah blah blah…yeah, yeah, your righteous outrage makes you a good person; whatever. Unlike most commenters here, I am content to see how this plays out in the courts, where it is now lodged. Got a problem with that? This thread is full of self pleasuring idiocy.

  235. 235.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    If McQuisling was a young priest at the time he witnessed the event, I seriously doubt anyone would now tut-tut and say “But gosh, he was so young/afraid of rocking the boat/didn’t want to endanger his career.”

  238. 238.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Satanicpanic: I was saying the same thing upthread, but then I realized that it was a little worse than that. He didn’t just take a few minutes to think about it, he took a whole day. I’d definitely freak out if I saw something like that and probably call someone for advice assuming I didn’t charge right in (can’t ever know until I’ve been tested) but nothing in the universe would have prevented me from doing something that day without hesitation. The thought of going home and going to sleep knowing I just let a rapist walk free without being reported to anyone but my dad is sickening to me.

  240. 240.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mnemosyne: Ah … but no one on the thread has said that McQueary should be criminally faulted. And no one has said that the others in the cover up should be the ones firing McQueary … First, most who’ve expressed an opinion have said that McQueary ought to quit (generally because his actions at the time and for the last eight years evince an unsuitability for continuing to work with young people). Second, while I do think that if he (and Paterno) don’t quit, they SHOULD be fired, that’s what the Board of Trustees of the university exists for at this point. And they should fire everyone in the chain between McQueary and the President who knew about the 2002 incident but never bothered to call the police and prevent Sandusky from continuing to be free to prey on children for another nine years.

    No one actually disagrees with the straw-man argument you make in this comment, so you actually win that, if that makes you happy. But it’s not relevant to any of the arguments people have been making in this thread …

  241. 241.

    Angela

    @aimai: What I have been trying to tell you, based on my experience working with numerous victims, is that his response to a sexual assault on a child being committed by an adult, is the most common one. It is different running to the aid of a child who has skinned their knee, and intervening when a child is being raped. I don’t like that. At all. But, in my experience, that is the fact.

    And based on the grand jury report and the press conference I watched today and both stating the importance of the GA’s credible testimony to the grand jury, my opinion is he did take the risk to safeguard the victims when he gave testimony.

    Yes, I wish he would have stopped the rape. And I am thankful he filed the report and then was honest in his testimony to the grand jury.

    Don’t you find it incredible that this went on in a football shower for 15 years and there were only two eye-witnesses? And only one that reported?

    I’m saving my disgust for the higher ups who enabled this abuse to continue. And for those who I think saw and never broke the silence.

  242. 242.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: I think trying to draw comparisons to other situations is counterproductive here. A lot of the things being discussed about this situation are only even issues because of the specifics of the case. It happened on a school campus policed by campus police instead of city police, and the perp was someone who the campus police later proved all too willing to cover up for. None of this would apply if this was an issue involving catholic priests, so of course no one would be making the arguments being made here (at least I hope not)

  243. 243.

    taylormattd

    @Mnemosyne: Holy christ, put down the crack pipe and step away from this thread.

    My god you look like a psychopath here. You are incoherent, all over the map, and appear to be deliberately incapable of reading the comments to which you are responding, all in defense of a guy who didn’t call the police after witnessing a 50+ year old man raping a little boy.

  244. 244.

    taylormattd

    @Samara Morgan: What a stupid argument. Counting comments. They are responding to Mem. It’s called a conversation about a specific topic. Jesus christ people are fucking stupid.

  245. 245.

    Mnemosyne

    @aimai:

    I think he should be terminated as a coach because he’s a terrible person—he was weak before he watched a crime being committed and he probable isn’t any better now.

    Except that he’s the one who gave full testimony in front of the grand jury and helped get the higher-ups indicted. If he had continued to go along to get along — downplayed what he saw, claimed his memory was fuzzy after all this time, whatever — then we probably wouldn’t be seeing the broad range of indictments that we’re seeing right now.

    This is why he seems more similar to a whistleblower to me: he had a chance to continue going along with the crimes but, for whatever reason, he finally balked and testified so convincingly that the grand jury believed him over Paterno.

    It doesn’t change his moral failures of 2002, but it seems like he’s being attacked for finally doing the right thing when, frankly, he didn’t really have to and would probably have done himself more good by protecting his higher-ups and claiming he didn’t remember. There are many sociopaths in this story, but McQueary doesn’t seem to be one of them. If the university fired him at this point, frankly it would seem a lot like retaliation for telling the truth to the grand jury.

  247. 247.

    shortstop

    @Cluttered Mind: Well, look at that. You’ve gone from one end of the moral spectrum to the other, laddie — all out loud and in public so we can all hear the little gears grinding away. Next time, maybe you’ll start your slow, laborious processing of simple questions before you jump into the mix swinging?

  249. 249.

    Perfect Tommy

    @Villago Delenda Est: I noticed the doubled http just as I hit “Submit” I fixed it before the page loaded and hit “Submit” again. I got a message saying “Slow down – you are posting too quickly” but it still resulted in a double post. I then requested deletion of the first post, which never occurred. Gotta love WordPress.

  250. 250.

    Cluttered Mind

    I hope the kids who suffered from this pedophile’s abuses were able to recover. I also hope McQueary can find some peace after this. If I was in his shoes, I’d have been feeling like a coward and a monster every day since the incident. Maybe now that he’s given this testimony he can start to feel like a real human being again.

  251. 251.

    Satanicpanic

    Just to be clear- McQuery left a 10 year old boy alone with a rapist. That’s a moral failure that I hope still keeps him awake at night. Even a total chicken could have dialed 9/11 and then pulled the fire alarm.

  252. 252.

    Ruckus

    @Cluttered Mind:
    I have also been in major incidents (one a major earthquake) and not everyone knew what to do(shut off gas line for example). And I have kept a man 4 inches taller and 50 lbs heavier from attacking someone. I’ve called the cops when I see something wrong happening. Not everyone keeps a calm demeanor, not everyone will get involved, but to tell me that you value the possibility of a career issue with not at least attempting to stop the rape of a 10 yr old? That’s just not right. And on so many levels.
    If your thinking is such that a defenseless 10 yr old can be collateral damage to your career, yeah you deserve all the scorn and none of the career.
    How is this different than the wall street thugs that are willing to steal your livelihood and think there should be no price for that?

  253. 253.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Jennifer:

    @bin Lurkin’: Yeah, and just coincidentally, the ONLY one who had the opportunity to step in and stop a crime in progress. Yep, all the BJ commenters here are just a bunch of racists for pointing out the guy’s culpability.

    Not racists so much as classists I think, I’m really not even sure that McQ is black as I indicated in my post.

    I find this whole thread quite an interesting study in psychology actually, the sports worship on BJ is one of the aspects of this blog that I like the least, I never bother to read the game threads.

    The one person who evidently didn’t actively cover up the crime(s) is the one coming in for the most abuse.

    I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.

  254. 254.

    Cluttered Mind

    @shortstop: I thought I made it clear that my position on the MORAL aspects of this haven’t changed from the start. Also, sometimes coming out swinging is the only way to learn. I was interested in this discussion because I wanted to learn something, and I have. If you’re so offended by it, I suppose I could just repeat the same point over and over again from now on and refuse to be swayed by thoughtful argument.

  256. 256.

    Brachiator

    @shortstop:

    Do a search for the word “moral” in this thread. Read every post of aimai’s that comes up as a result of that search. I think if you had read the thread to begin with, you wouldn’t have held forth on moral vs. legal responsibility as though you were helpfully explaining the difference to her.

    I read the thread. I read all of aimai’s posts.

    I stand by all my criticisms, especially where she talks about people signing oaths and being held liable for potential moral failings. And as I noted I think she went overboard in attacking people, apparently because they simply didn’t fall in line with her way of thinking.

    Her insistence on the way things should be, rather than the sad, often predictable way that real people react to these situations, is just tiresome. But your mileage may vary.

  257. 257.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Ruckus: I didn’t say I valued such things higher, I just said that some people might, and it’s easy to understand why. Many philosophers have been arguing for centuries that humanity is an inherently selfish race that places self-preservation above anything else. My point here is that it’s understandable, I’ve stopped trying to defend it.

  259. 259.

    taylormattd

    @Samara Morgan: You counted comments as some measure of who people people believe to be more culpable. Your method is fucking stupid.

    Moreover, “calling for his blood” is such a ridiculous description of the comment, your further words here should just be ignored. She called everyone out in that comment, including Paterno, and nowhere did she “call for his blood”

    You are just a liar with an inexplicable hardon for defending the guy. Let me reprint aimai’s comment in full:

    I’ll say here what I said there. I’m a five foot nothing middle aged woman and there’s no way I would have walked past that shower without dragging that child to safety. Loveable Joe From Lowell compared it, over at LGM, to the shock and fear that one feels when a gunman opens up on a crowd and argued that “none of us would be heroes” if we, too, caught sight of an old man buggering a ten year old boy.

    My jaw just hit the fucking floor. I know Joe’s morality glands may have been drained over his years of abusing them in the service of the Catholic Church Hierarchy but apparently he doesn’t know any normal people and normal parents. We are confronted every day by dangerous incidents involving children—when a kid gets hit on a soccer field or is injured while playing there are really zero adults who run away from the scene of the action or stand bewildered wondering who to notify.

    A 28 year old graduate assistant former football player ought to have had the natural human kindness and good sense, the basic human decency, to have grabbed the rapist and secured the child and called a fucking ambulance.

    And you know what? Ditto for Paterno. Not that he was in a position to call an ambulance some hours or days after the fact but State College is a hugely small social world—he had a duty to the parents and staff of the various community organizations with which his “friend” and “colleague” was associated to warn them and to put a stop to all contact between his assistant and children. And don’t tell me he couldn’t have done it for fear of reprisals—he had a duty to protect all the children he could even if it meant some social or legal problems. Not the graduate assistant—but Paterno himself. There is no excuse.

  260. 260.

    300baud

    @Mnemosyne:

    To be clear, I’m not arguing that McQueary isn’t a moral midget. It’s just that, to me, his crimes pale in comparison to the chain of authority that goes all the way up to the president of the fucking university.

    I think you’re ignoring that he had direct evidence. Other people heard there was a problem; some of them heard it nth-hand. He knew. And he stayed there and took the promotion and kept quiet.

  261. 261.

    Comrade Mary

    Cluttered Mind, you said something about the boy had already been raped and charging in couldn’t fix that. (Based on your last post, I’m not sure if you still hold that position.)

    But think of it this way: say that the boy had been raped for 5 minutes before tha GA arrived. Walking away meant the boy got raped for another 5 minutes? Ten minutes?

    And even if it was only seconds more, that boy had to deal with the additional knowledge that somebody saw — and walled away. even if he didn’t see the GA then, he knows now.

  263. 263.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    @aimai, @Mnomosyne, et al….

    Stopped reading at about comment #150, and I’ve got to say that I find it surprising that no one has brought up the possibility that McQueary, upon walking in on the rape, was in an honest-to-FSM state of shock. That might easily explain not only his inaction in stopping the rape, but in going to his dad. A deep sense of guilt and shame for not stopping the rape could have caused further inaction in not following up more promptly. There but for the grace…

  264. 264.

    Suffern ACE

    @Satanicpanic: The apartment building I lived in once caught fire. I ran out of the building down the street to the fire station that was six blocks away even though I had a cell phone in my pocket. My more together used his cell phone and called his mother. I agree looking at the call to the father as yet another symptom of moral depravity is just not square with what people do every time they have an emergency where 911 is the obvious answer.

  265. 265.

    Satanicpanic

    @Cluttered Mind: Exactly, waiting 24 hours? For all he knew Sandusky could have murdered that kid. I would love to think I would be a hero, but I don’t want to jinx myself so I’m trying to be realistic.

  266. 266.

    Angela

    @bin Lurkin’: I’m surprised. I shouldn’t be, but I am. The one who broke the silence, and disabled the cover up, is the one getting slammed.

    Oh yeah, just like real life I guess.

  267. 267.

    shortstop

    @Cluttered Mind:

    I thought I made it clear that my position on the MORAL aspects of this haven’t changed from the start.

    Yes, you said so. You didn’t “make it clear” for the simple reason that it’s flatly untrue. Significantly moving the goalposts and blathering on piously about the importance of the children’s recovery–after you argued that it’s a defensible choice to protect your own career rather than stopping a rape that had already started, with absolutely no grasp of the serial nature of pedophilia, not to mention the concept of justice–doesn’t erase the path of your argument.

    I’m not offended by your stunning lack of self-awareness; I’m amused by the fact that you keep talking without thinking and then congratulating yourself for it, believing that you’re making a fine exhibit of the socratic method.

  268. 268.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Comrade Mary: I honestly don’t know. I’ve never been in a situation like that myself. I try to have the capacity to forgive people who prove themselves repentant, as the former GA has, but it’s not always easy or even possible.

  269. 269.

    Violet

    @aimai:

    As long as the sports program is continuing a new stream of actors and players and students and families are coming through those doors. They deserve to have coaches who have demonstrated some kind of moral fiber, some kind of leadership skills, and some kind of knowledge of their duty towards their charges and towards injured bystanders.

    I agree with this. They definitely deserve such coaches. But how do you make sure that the new hires would act in the way you’d want, should they ever happen across such a assault? What definitive test is there? Outside of setting up such a situation and having a test run, it’s impossible to say how someone would really act. If you ask them during an interview, of course they’ll say, “I’d do whatever it took to stop it.” We all think we would. But not everyone will. How do you know?

    The entire football system there was so predicated on cult-like worship of Paterno and his supposed ability to win that fear and hero-worship and lots of other issues were no doubt at play. Not that any of those are excuses, but the system was corrupt and bred an environment of clubbiness and allowed Sandusky to get away with what he did because no one wanted to see or nor did they believe it when they heard it.

    There are lots of individuals at fault, but the system as a whole is also a problem. It is a lot of places.

  270. 270.

    Samara Morgan

    @taylormattd: she equivalenced Paterno with McQueary.

    Your method is fucking stupid.

    are you unfamiliar with sentiment polling methods?

    “calling for his blood” is such a ridiculous description of the comment

    in further comments. Did she mention Paterno or Sandusky much later?
    nope, all her passion was reserved for JUDGING McCreary.
    im not defending McCreary.
    im just astonished at the chihuahua pack ripping up McCreary instead of the conspiracists.
    /shrug
    or maybe not so much.

  272. 272.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Perfect Tommy:

    Yup, WP can be so wonderful at times.

    Followed the second link. Sho’nuff, if you tried to pass this off as fiction, you’d be laughed out of the publishing house.

  273. 273.

    Catsy

    Argh. I said I wouldn’t wade in, but this is just bullshit:

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, we’re saying that McQueary should not be criminally faulted for not physically intervening

    The bolded part is a nice try at moving the goalposts, but we both know that that is not at all what you’ve been arguing–nor is it anything that the people you’re arguing with have said. Show of hands: who’s been arguing that McQueary should be prosecuted for walking away from the child rape and reporting it later? Anyone? No?

    Those arguing with you have, in general, been arguing one or both of two different things:

    1. McQueary should be held accountable for not intervening to protect that child by losing his job.
    2. McQueary made the wrong moral choice by walking away from a child rape in progress.

    Starting with (1):

    Too many times to count you’ve said words to the effect of “why should McQueary be punished more severely than the people who covered it up?” This is an excellent question. It would be a useful one if anyone here actually had argued that McQueary should be punished more. But no one has. So why keep asking it?

    The fact that we are focusing so much on McQueary is partially because you and your ilk are fighting so hard to defend him, thus keeping the subject active–but originates in the fact that he alone actually witnessed Sandusky in the act of raping a child, and walked away from it without intervening. This focus does not mean we are letting the others off the hook. They should lose their jobs as well, and face legal sanction if it can be proved that they actively engaged in covering up child rape. But they didn’t witness a rape in progress, so they’re not really relevant to the core question here: whether or not McQueary had a moral duty to interrupt the child rape in progress.

    Let this put an end to your repeated straw man questions about “why should McQueary be punished more”, so that we can move on to (2): the question of moral duty.

    The fact is that the vast majority of your responses on this thread have focused on imagining reasons–be they state of mind or circumstances–why McQueary should not be morally faulted for walking away, reasons that for the most part are the product of your imagination or at best reasoned conjecture.

    At no point have you managed to simply acknowledge that McQueary was wrong to walk away from a child rape in progress. The fact that this is even controversial is appalling.

    For the same reasons that McQueary is no longer fit to hold a job where he is responsible for children, I sincerely hope that you are never placed in a position where a child’s safety depends on you–because you apparently cannot be trusted to do the right thing unless it’s easy and safe for you.

  274. 274.

    Mnemosyne

    @bin Lurkin’:

    The one person who evidently didn’t actively cover up the crime(s) is the one coming in for the most abuse.

    As I said above, I think it’s because he’s the only guy whose situation most of us can picture ourselves being put into. Intervention seems like a very easy thing to do, especially when you’re not actually in the situation, and no one wants to picture themselves failing as horribly as McQueary did. Frankly, given how forthcoming the guy was with the grand jury, I suspect that his lack of action has been bothering him for years and he was relieved to get it all off his chest.

    If he can keep his courage up and ride out the inevitable death threats and probability that he’ll never get hired for another coaching position, he’ll be the star witness at the trials.

  275. 275.

    shortstop

    @Violet: Well, we don’t know, and the entire system is rotten to the core, but one thing we don’t do is allow anyone we know to be corrupt to continue. In other words, the problem of finding individuals with probity to replace the ones who need to go is a separate issue from demanding accountability from the current crop.

  276. 276.

    300baud

    @Cluttered Mind:

    You may be willing to potentially ruin your entire life and career to save a 10 year old you don’t know who has already suffered the traumatic experience you’re trying to halt. Not everyone is. Not every 28 year old is. People are making this out to be a far simpler decision than it really is.

    Untrue. It’s actually quite simple. What isn’t is easy.

    Which is why we as a species spend so much time on morality. We don’t need a conscience or a moral education or strength of character to tell us to do the right thing when it’s easy.

    It could be that you or any of us would fail this moral test, or some other equally important one. Until we have faced it, we can’t truly know. But that doesn’t justify the bullshit you’re spinning here. That it was hard doesn’t excuse his failure to intervene at the moment, or his actions later. He failed, and compounded his failure by making a career with an organization he knew was protecting a monster.

  277. 277.

    Samara Morgan

    so okfine.
    Anyone.
    Do you think any of the victims will come forward?
    is there a statutory limit on civil suits?

  280. 280.

    Cluttered Mind

    @shortstop: I’m pretty sure I never mentioned anything about the children’s recovery. I just went back over all my posts looking for something like that and didn’t find anything, let alone anything that would qualify as “blathering on piously” about its importance. What drew me to this discussion in the first place was my interest in the topic of morality vs. practicality and rationality, and I only spoke up in the first place because I saw a lot of people attacking someone for showing a lack of morality when I perceived him as just reacting in a way that didn’t process morality as part of the equation…which is how quite a lot of people behave when they’re totally shocked. Fight isn’t the only programmed response in humans, flight is there too. As for the concept of justice, that’s been subjective for the entire history of mankind, not that I’ve attempted to argue anything based on it.

  281. 281.

    shortstop

    @300baud:

    He failed, and compounded his failure by making a career with an organization he knew was protecting a monster.

    Exactly. The “Well, he failed to protect the child, but at least he came forward later” (years after the fact and after voluntarily establishing himself firmly in the den of the beast) argument Does Not Wash.

  282. 282.

    TuiMel

    @Mnemosyne:

    So? He didn’t report it, so he should be punished along with everyone else.

    OK. You’ve really jumped the shark now. People are not saying that McQueary should be fired and his superiors in the cover up go on with life without consequence. They are opining that he was in a position to intervene to stop the rape of a child. He did not do so. He reported what he failed to stop up the chain of command. Did that relieve his conscience? Did that make it possible to know that Sandusky continued to interact with young men with impunity? Did it absolve him of taking further steps to insure what he saw (if in fact it was as he said to the Grand Jury) was completely investigated? In such an investigation, how could an eye witness not be further interviewed? How could he square that in his mind? How could he continue to see “Coach” continue to have access to the very facilities where he saw him rape a 10 year old boy? He said nothing, did nothing more over nearly 10 years. If I’m paying tuition to PSU, if I am buying football tickets from PSU, I think this guy deserves to lose his job as a participant in the cover up who had the most potent information to bring down the house of cards. Sure, he was a smaller fish. That does not make him deserving of a pass. And, yes, I am drawing this conclusion from the safety of my keyboard. I get to do that sometimes.

  283. 283.

    Catsy

    @Samara Morgan: This coming from our resident expert in nipping at the heels of people you don’t like and making a whole lot of irritating noise that accomplishes nothing of value and just makes everyone present wish you’d stick a cork in it.

    Metaphor fail, Sparky.

  284. 284.

    shortstop

    @Cluttered Mind:

    I’m pretty sure I never mentioned anything about the children’s recovery. I just went back over all my posts looking for something like that and didn’t find anything, let alone anything that would qualify as “blathering on piously” about its importance.

    @Cluttered Mind:

    I hope the kids who suffered from this pedophile’s abuses were able to recover. I also hope McQueary can find some peace after this. If I was in his shoes, I’d have been feeling like a coward and a monster every day since the incident. Maybe now that he’s given this testimony he can start to feel like a real human being again.

    A real human being who understood that once the rape of a sobbing 10-year-old has started, what’s the point of stepping in if it’ll just compromise your own career, amirite? I mean, that’s an understandable viewpoint, for sure, hey?

  285. 285.

    Mnemosyne

    @Catsy:

    The fact that we are focusing so much on McQueary is partially because you and your ilk are fighting so hard to defend him, but originates in the fact that he alone actually witnessed Sandusky in the act of raping a child, and walked away from it without intervening.

    He’s also the one who gave testimony in front of the grand jury that was damning enough that he was believed over secular saint Paterno.

    I’m saying that it’s very, very easy to be an internet tough guy and say without hesitation that you would have intervened, but unless you’ve actually been in that situation, you will never know how you would react. Angela has pointed out several times on this thread that, in her experience with abuse victims, not intervening is actually the norm. We have mandatory reporting laws because people usually don’t intervene.

    He was wrong not to intervene, but he sure wasn’t unusual.

  286. 286.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Mnemosyne:

    ride out the inevitable death threats

    Just to clarify, the death threats won’t be because he walked away from the rape in progress, they will be due to the fact that he said anything at all about what he witnessed.

  287. 287.

    Cluttered Mind

    @shortstop: It could have cost him quite a lot more than his career if he’d gotten arrested. Permanent records have a way of being permanent. That said, I’ve stopped trying to defend him, and am just saying that what he did is understandable and not as foreign to normal human thought as some people are portraying it to be. If everyone was capable of making the hard moral choices, they wouldn’t be considered hard.

  288. 288.

    geg6

    @Cluttered Mind:

    the perp was someone who the campus police later proved all too willing to cover up for.

    People keep saying this, but this is not really correct. The only person this was reported who had any connection to the university police was the vice president of finance and business. No actual police officer received a report. I know these cops, many of them, and no way would they cover this up. They are, generally, good cops and the only actual campus police detective who received a report of anything was the guy in 1998 who investigated, talked to the mom, victim, and Sandusky in the case where there was no real evidence that Sandusky had done anything other than something very out of the ordinary, but not rape. Not long after Sandusky “retired” and no one pressed charges, so the cop really couldn’t do anything, I would think.

    It was Schultz, the vp whose department the university police fall under, that got the subsequent reports, not any cops. Neither McQueary nor Paterno nor Curley went to an actual cop. They went to Schultz, an administrator and not a cop.

  289. 289.

    bin Lurkin'

    @Mnemosyne:

    Angela has pointed out several times on this thread that, in her experience with abuse victims, not intervening is actually the norm.

    The reality based community at BJ is sticking its fingers in its ears and tra-la-la-ing to the utmost to avoid hearing that awkward piece of information.

  290. 290.

    Cluttered Mind

    @geg6: Lovely. Now I get to feel like a total moron who didn’t do the research. If the cops actually weren’t involved in this at all and the guy didn’t report it to an actual officer of the law for years and years, then my entire argument is bullshit. Gah, I’m dumb today. Whoever said I was talking without thinking enough was right.

  292. 292.

    John Cole

    @Mnemosyne:

    But, again, why does he hold more moral blame than the actual criminals who covered up the crime?

    He holds the same as Curley and Schultz, imo. A GA came to him and told him he witnessed Sandusky anal raping a 10 year old in the showers. Joe shrugged, told Curley and Schultz, and the matter was quietly dropped. The GA is now a coach.

    Now, ten years later, Joe Pa wants to pretend he was SHOCKED that this happened. I didn’t know we were talking about anal rape. I thought it was just some funning in the shower.

    Paterno is getting the same amount of blame as the others involved, because from what we know, Paterno was at the very least passively involved in the cover-up. But, as we all know, and will surely come out soon when people start to squeal and turn on each other, it was an open secret about Sandusky’s decades of molestation, and you can be god damned sure the King of Penn State, Joe Paterno, knew what was going on.

    Not to mention, he is already being treated with kid gloves- he should have been indicted and brought before a jury.

  293. 293.

    Cluttered Mind

    @geg6: I may be responsible for this. I never claimed McQueary himself was black but I did use the example of a black man being reluctant to intervene in a crime in progress for fear of being arrested along with the criminals in order to illustrate my point about hostile environments.

  295. 295.

    Mnemosyne

    @TuiMel:

    Did that relieve his conscience?

    Clearly it did not relieve his conscience since he ended up giving testimony to the grand jury that will probably allow everyone up the chain from him to be prosecuted for their criminal inaction. Which is one of the reasons I’m defending him as a whistleblower whose conscience finally got the better of him.

  296. 296.

    Catsy

    @Mnemosyne:

    He’s also the one who gave testimony in front of the grand jury that was damning enough that he was believed over secular saint Paterno.

    Yes. But these are two separate actions. His testimony does him credit. But it does not erase his previous moral failure, nor does it change the essential question of whether or not he had a moral duty to intervene.

    I’m saying that it’s very, very easy to be an internet tough guy and say without hesitation that you would have intervened, but unless you’ve actually been in that situation, you will never know how you would react.

    It is absolutely true that none of us know, for certain, how we would react when placed in that situation. But that is broadly true of nearly any situation one hasn’t experienced, so there’s really not a whole lot of value in beating that point to death. A few people here seem pretty sure of themselves. They may be right, and they may not.

    But not knowing for certain what one would do is very different from expressing an opinion about what one should do. In general, and subject to circumstances, human beings have a moral duty to stop a wrong from being committed if they have the ability to do so. The weight of that duty and the moral cost of failure is going to vary depending on the specific wrong to be prevented, but the circumstances here are pretty clear-cut: no racial issue, no weapon involved, and the witness was a fit, athetlic man witnessing a child being raped by a naked grown man. If he weighed the risk of harm to his career against stopping the rape that was currently in progress, and chose the former, there’s no excuse in the world that will wash that stain away.

  297. 297.

    Mnemosyne

    @bin Lurkin’:

    Just to clarify, the death threats won’t be because he walked away from the rape in progress, they will be due to the fact that he said anything at all about what he witnessed.

    Exactly. To many people, the fact that McQuerry dropped the dime on Paterno and the rest of the hierarchy will be worse than the rape of a child.

    But exposing the whole rotten system was a no-brainer that anyone could do without a second thought!

  298. 298.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Mnemosyne: People can be more than one thing at a time, they can even be two opposite things at a time. He can be an amoral coward who allowed the rape of a child to go unreported for years while simultaneously being a courageous whistleblower who put an end to decades of child rape. It’s fair to credit him for what he did right and to condemn him for what he did wrong. Does one make up for the other? I don’t think there’s a person alive who can make that call with 100% certainty.

  299. 299.

    Mnemosyne

    @John Cole:

    The core of the argument going on here is that people are arguing that the GA should be fired because he didn’t physically intervene back in 2002.

    I know I never said that Paterno shouldn’t be locked away for the rest of his miserable life. The argument is about whether or not the GA should be fired for not immediately acting when he witnessed the crime back in 2002.

  300. 300.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cluttered Mind:

    Does one make up for the other? I don’t think there’s a person alive who can make that call with 100% certainty.

    And yet there are a whole lot of people on this thread who are absolutely sure that they can be 100% certain and therefore McQuerty should be fired ASAP.

    ETA:
    @ Catsy:

    But not knowing for certain what one would do is very different from expressing an opinion about what one should do.

    But it’s the insistence that we not only know what he should have done, but that he should be punished for not doing it by being fired from his job because naturally anyone in that situation would have done the right thing that bothers me.

  301. 301.

    Samara Morgan

    @Catsy:

    that he alone actually witnessed Sandusky in the act of raping a child, and walked away from it without intervening.

    you do not know that, chihuahua #7.
    there could have been many witnessed rapes that many guys walked away from.

  302. 302.

    TuiMel

    @Mnemosyne:
    He participated in a cover up until the law and another investigation caught up to him. He covered up. He needs to go along with the other fish up to Paterno and the PSU president.

  303. 303.

    Cluttered Mind

    @Mnemosyne: As I said earlier, I think he shouldn’t be allowed to work with kids if he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t rescue one being raped in front of his eyes. That said, he also deserves credit for bringing this whole thing to light. Fortunately for McQuerty, I’m just a guy on the internet whose opinions aren’t actually relevant to whether or not he keeps his job. I was only interested in this discussion because of the morality issues at work here and the debate about whether or not doing the moral thing is always the right thing.

  304. 304.

    geg6

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, people are saying that McQueary should be fired because he does not have the character or moral turpitude to be in charge of young men. Quite a different thing than what you are saying they said.

    FTR, I think he should be fired. If I were a parent, I wouldn’t let my kid play football for him.

  307. 307.

    Mnemosyne

    @TuiMel:

    How about all of the others who witnessed the same crimes and didn’t report it to anyone at all, much less testify for the grand jury? If you really think that McQuerty and the janitor were the only people in 20 years to witness Sandusky abusing kids, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

  309. 309.

    les

    @bin Lurkin’:
    Fer fucks sake, he was the only one present while the crime occurred. And couldn’t bring himself to tell a rapist to knock it the fuck off. Jesus, the idiocy on display in this thread is overpowering. Strongly possible that he could have stopped a child rape in process by simply speaking up. Yeah, let’s make him the victim, and applaud him for keeping his then and future job of working with children. Fuck.

  310. 310.

    Angela

    @John Cole: I’m thinking the core of the argument is that a lot of people don’t understand the dynamics of abuse, and want to chastise the GA who broke the silence surrounding this decade of abuse because he didn’t intervene and they know they would have.

  314. 314.

    300baud

    @Mnemosyne:

    How about all of the others who witnessed the same crimes and didn’t report it to anyone at all, much less testify for the grand jury?

    Man, I figured you’d run out of straw by now.

  315. 315.

    geg6

    @Samara Morgan:

    In all the stupid shit I’ve seen you say on here, this might just be the most stupid.

    I hate to tell you, but your religion judges, too. Women have been stoned to death by your judgmental religion.

    Judging…it’s a human thing.

  316. 316.

    Catsy

    you do not know that, chihuahua #7.

    Are you going to start chanting “nanny nanny boo boo” at us next? And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.

    there could have been many witnessed rapes that many guys walked away from.

    That could very well be, but since we have no knowledge of anyone else having done so, we can’t very well discuss what they did, can we?

    Also, it’s worth noting that in context it should’ve been pretty clear that “he alone” should be read as “out of the others who covered it up”. Not that I expect much from you when it comes to keeping things in context.

    For that matter, not at all surprised to see you come down on the wrong side of this issue.

  317. 317.

    Mnemosyne

    @geg6:

    No, people are saying that McQueary should be fired because he does not have the character or moral turpitude to be in charge of young men. Quite a different thing than what you are saying they said.

    So testifying in front of the grand jury was such a simple, easy thing to do that it shouldn’t even be taken into account when looking at his moral character?

    If we were judging the guy solely by his actions in 2002, I might agree with you. But that would assume that his grand jury testimony had no moral weight at all.

    As I said above, though, you’re right that he’s probably going to be fired and he will never work as a coach again, but it’s not going to be because of what he did or didn’t do in 2002. It’s going to be because he testified against the criminals at UPenn who covered up what happened in 2002 and is now untrustworthy as far as any other university is concerned. And it bugs me that ultimately he is going to be punished because he did the right thing, not because any future university is going to weigh the sum total of all of his actions and decide that 2002 outweighs 2011.

  318. 318.

    geg6

    @300baud:

    What others? Please show us who they are so we can call them cowardly assholes who should never have any responsibility for young people, ever? I’ll be happy to rake them over the coals, too.

  319. 319.

    les

    @Mnemosyne:
    Of course, absolutely. No one should suffer for their bad behavior unless every single other possible bad behaver suffers. You’re just a bottomless pit of illogic and idiocy, aren’t you.

  321. 321.

    geg6

    @Mnemosyne:

    So he’ll be fired and not be able to get another university coaching job because he was forced to appear to testify at a grand jury investigation (and not an investigation that he set off by voluntarily going to the DA and providing his evidence…no, he held his tongue for years and years until forced to speak under oath) and not because he has shown that he does not have the judgment or sense of responsibility to be trusted with the well being of young men because he is willing to participate in a coverup for a child rapist in exchange for a job?

    Is this what you are really arguing? Seriously?

  322. 322.

    Catsy

    But it’s the insistence that we not only know what he should have done, but that he should be punished for not doing it by being fired from his job because naturally anyone in that situation would have done the right thing that bothers me.

    No one is arguing that he should lose his job for the reason I’ve bolded.

    The argument is that he should lose his job because his job involves working with children, and he walked away from a child rape in progress without even attempting to intervene.

    This wasn’t some elderly woman happening upon an armed rapist. It wasn’t a minority who might have reason to fear getting the police involved. And it wasn’t another kid who might have just as much to fear from the rapist as the victim.

    It was a grown, fit, athletic man who observed a naked, unarmed man raping a young child–and did not act to intervene.

    His inaction makes him morally unfit to hold a job where he is responsible for the well-being of anyone’s children. It doesn’t matter what he’s done since to make up for it–I still wouldn’t trust him to protect my son if his career was at stake.

  323. 323.

    les

    @Mnemosyne:
    teh stupid and illogic rolls on. As a parent, I can’t tell you how comforting it would be to know that the assistant coach who witnessed my child’s rape testified to a grand jury a decade later. Yeah, hell, give ‘im a raise. He shouldn’t suffer a bit, probably get a medal. Put him in charge of more kids.

  324. 324.

    Suffern ACE

    @John Cole:

    Not to mention, he is already being treated with kid gloves- he should have been indicted and brought before a jury.

    O.K. and he might be. This was a grand jury and if I am reading that correctly, it was a grand jury regarding whether or not there was sufficient evidence to bring charges against Sandusky. In the process of the hearing, the Grand Jury found that Curley and Schultz were not credible in their testimony and they are being charged with perjury-related acts.

    There is going to be another trial of Sandusky on these charges and more information might come forward.

    My guess is that there is now going to be a separate investigation into the cover up issues and maybe more charges. I would find it hard to believe that when a few high ranking executives at a university are found to be lying by a grand jury, that there wouldn’t be an investigation and more charges. If it is the duty of the school administrators to report sexual assults to police, there will be more charges. But it does not appear that this particular hearing was about that issue, but started as a hearing into whether or not there should be a trial of Sandusky.

    Now some lawyer here can correct me as to where this case stands.

    That said, the attorney general appears that she would like the case to stay focused on Sandusky (wouldn’t everybody in PA), so maybe the matter of the charity’s and school’s culpability will be dropped.

  325. 325.

    300baud

    @Mnemosyne:

    But that would assume that his grand jury testimony had no moral weight at all.

    What moral weight are you assigning there? Did he do something beyond what he was legally compelled to do, which is to show up and answer questions honestly?

    I do agree it’s bad for him that other authoritarian and/or criminal organizations may not hire him because he’s now seen as a snitch. But given that he chose to work for one for the last 8 years, I find it hard to work up a great deal of sympathy.

  326. 326.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    All i have to say about this, as a genuine Joe Paterno hater, for things other than this scandal, for decades, when most people would look at you as if you had two heads if you claimed you didn’t but into the image of Joe Paterno, I hope everything, everything, comes out.

    I honestly thought Paterno had outlived the people who were there witnessing him wanting to fight other coaches in the parking lots of fast food restaurants while on the recruiting trail. Now, i give it a ten percent chance that everything comes out.

    For the people who want to blame college football, or sports in general for this, NO. i am sorry you were stuffed into lockers, but that would be like blaming all of western literature for those child molesting greeks, or everyone who pays too much attention to politics, for mark foley.

    get over yourselves. the thing, Paterno, and Penn St., was always a media, fan, and hype driven phenomena. From how “old school” the uniforms look, to the pretense that never having had an investigation result in a violation of ncaa rules is proof of a clean program, people went for the okey, in the okey doke. Penn St didn’t one time decide to cover up a child molestor, hiding shit and providing plausible deniability, has been so ingrained the reaction to Sandusky at the time, was as much reflex, as self-preservation.

  327. 327.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    All i have to say about this, as a genuine Joe Paterno hater, for things other than this scandal, for decades, when most people would look at you as if you had two heads if you claimed you didn’t but into the image of Joe Paterno, I hope everything, everything, comes out.

    I honestly thought Paterno had outlived the people who were there witnessing him wanting to fight other coaches in the parking lots of fast food restaurants while on the recruiting trail. Now, i give it a ten percent chance that everything comes out.

    For the people who want to blame college football, or sports in general for this, NO. i am sorry you were stuffed into lockers, but that would be like blaming all of western literature for those child molesting greeks, or everyone who pays too much attention to politics, for mark foley.

    get over yourselves. this is not what athletics, or college football is about. this is not an inevitability.

    the thing, Paterno, and Penn St., was always a media, fan, and hype driven phenomena. From how “old school” the uniforms look, to the pretense that never having had an investigation result in a violation of ncaa rules is proof of a clean program, people went for the okey, in the okey doke. Penn St didn’t one time decide to cover up a child molestor, hiding shit and providing plausible deniability, has been so ingrained the reaction to Sandusky at the time, was as much reflex, as self-preservation.

  329. 329.

    Kola Noscopy

    Fools.

    None of you knows what happened, which is of course, why you’ve spent 309 comments touching yourselves and fondling your outrage.

    I’m gay. Just as gay as I was when I was 10 or 12 or 14. And I was horny too. All the more so because I was closeted and had no outlets for my sexuality.

    Just specifically, in the case of the shower sex spotted by the asst. coach, WHAT IF, since we’re speculating all over hell anyway with no evidence one way or the other…WHAT IF the kid was ENJOYING what was going on? What if he consented, in that moment, regardless of age issues, what if he was into it? Nowhere in the GJ report does it say the kid was struggling or pinned, or screaming, or that there was blood or any other drama as stupidly implied upthread!

    What if the kid was mortified not that he was fucking, but that they had been CAUGHT? What if the coach saw there was no force being used? It says in the report that he made eye contact with fucker and fuckee. IF the kid was consenting, wouldn’t things have been made a hundred times more traumatic for him if this coach had come in screaming, punching, calling the cops, raising a ruckus? What if discreetly leaving, as the coach did, was the right moral thing to do under the exact circumstances of the incident, which none of you has a clue as to the reality of. A GJ report is NOT CONCLUSIVE PROOF OF GUILT. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of a trial?

    When I was ten or twelve or fourteen I would have LOVED it if an older coach had fucked me in the shower, and I wouldn’t want anybody making a scene about it either. When I played grammar school BB I was so in love with our coach I couldn’t stand it. IF ONLY he had made advances.

    There is a know it all, self righteous streak a mile wide on the blog, and not just a little homophobia. The gay sex alleged in this incident has been equated to machine gun killing and other atrocities as though there is nothing worse in the world than butt sex. I tell you now: There is little in the world BETTER than butt sex, and your bigotry is showing.

    Also, too and furthermore: I think Sandusky is probably a fucked up pedophile with major psychological issues; the same homophobia on display in this thread plays a big part in twisting people into such a shape. Note I say “probably,” nothing has been proven.

    I also think it’s likely he subconsciously WANTED to be caught! Why else is he doing this shit, multiple times, in locales where he could easily be caught? STOP ME, BEFORE I FUCK AGAIN is pretty much the message.

    I think the asst. coach handled it just right.

    Oh, and Aimai is a homophobic, self righteous, keyboard hero know it all.

  330. 330.

    Yutsano

    @Samara Morgan:

    Sufis have never stoned anyone.

    One True Scotsman! Awesome defense there!!

    @Kola Noscopy: Your NAMBLA membership awaits. And thanks for doing such a bang-up job of equating pedophilia with homosexuality too.

  331. 331.

    Ruckus

    @Angela:
    This is about finding an adult fucking a 10 year old child. And doing nothing about it until it was “safe” to do so. He didn’t call 911. He called his father. He didn’t report a crime that he witnessed to the police. He reported it to his boss, not a law enforcement professional. And he did this 24 hrs later.
    I know that a lot of humans look the other way when abuse is happening. A lot of humans look the other way whenever it is inconvenient. A lot of women will not testify/press charges/leave an abusive situation. However he was an independent adult witness to child rape. And did nothing to stop it. His reasons are not relevant.
    HE WAS WRONG.
    So are others who witness abuse and do nothing. So the question is – would I want my children to be under the supervision of a person with this history? Hell no. Just because a lot or even the majority of people will not put themselves in harms way does not make him right. It might fit him into the norm. It does not make him normal.
    HE WAS WRONG.

  332. 332.

    Samara Morgan

    @geg6: like i said, this hivemind is diseased. calling for the blood of the one person that did the right thing, even if it was late.
    if not for that lone graduate assistant, the grand jury could have come up dry.
    im just wondering about about the asymmetrical venom being spewed here.
    from aimai, catsy, et al.
    of course they can SAY they would have acted differently– but they werent there. they are just preening their moral plummage, like usual.

    so what happens to Paterno and Sandusky and Curley and Shultz?
    do the victims bring lawsuits like those against the pederast priests?
    will any come forward?
    what happens to the foundation?

  333. 333.

    Samara Morgan

    @Yutsano: alright. we will do the both sides do it defense then.

    do you prefer it?

    burning at the stake, torture drowning, witch-testing, the albigensians?

  334. 334.

    eemom

    @Kola Noscopy:

    holy shit, Tim.

    I’m pretty sure we’d have all had the same reaction if it had been a 10 year old girl. I.e., assumed it was not “consensual.”

  336. 336.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne:

    If we were judging the guy solely by his actions in 2002, I might agree with you. But that would assume that his grand jury testimony had no moral weight at all.

    Are you under the impression that he had some some of coma-inducing head injury that rendered him blacked out and unable to speak–while, amazingly, enabling him to accept ongoing employment from the people he knew were protecting a pedophile–between 2002 and when the investigation finally got to him?

    Of all the games of verbal and moral Twister you’ve played here, this one may be the most contorted. There really isn’t anything you won’t say to avoid having to admit you were wrong, is there?

  337. 337.

    General Stuck

    Mnemosyne made a simple observation that in real life, there are shades of gray in the moral measurements of human beings. And a pack of self righteous snarling jackals jump on to prove their courage, sitting safely at their computers. They all failed, some morally, others legally, but at least one has made an effort for redemption. Maybe Mcqueary should be fired, I don’t know. But if so, the odds of the next witness simply walking on by is increased for this man’s scalp.

  338. 338.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Just specifically, in the case of the shower sex spotted by the asst. coach, WHAT IF, since we’re speculating all over hell anyway with no evidence one way or the other…WHAT IF the kid was ENJOYING what was going on?

    Ah, the pedophile’s “but the 10-year-old seduced me!” excuse.

    You just keep telling yourself that fooling around with underage kids isn’t really a crime because, like, they’re totally horny for you. I’m sure the court will side with you when your case comes to trial.

    Hint for the future: the moral of Lolita is not that social disapproval forced star-crossed lovers Humbert and Lolita apart. It’s that Humbert took advantage of his position of authority to have sex with a child who was not old enough to understand the possible consequences to herself.

  340. 340.

    300baud

    @Kola Noscopy:

    IF the kid was consenting,

    It is not legally or morally possible for a kid to consent to sex with an authority figure at the age of 10. It’s like asking “What if the Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers really wanted to be raped, abused, and forced into hostilities?” It’s an idiotic question, and beside the point. Kids can’t consent to something like that, so it doesn’t matter what they want. The adult is culpable regardless.

  341. 341.

    Angela

    1in6.org. You want to understand the dynamics of abuse. Read it. There are men on this thread who have been abused, this is a site that might be helpful.

    There are those who don’t understand how the GA didn’t intervene, if you want to know the reasons, there is a page that might be helpful.

    1 in 6 men, 1 in 4 women. Those are very conservative stats for the those who have experienced sexual abuse.

    I hope someday our society cares enough to get educated about the realities.

  342. 342.

    dms

    @Mnemosyne: Did you actually read the grand jury report?

    The janitor, a part-timer, did report it to his colleagues and his boss. They all stated that he was so upset that they thought he was going to have a heart attack. He’s since been institutionalized and deemed psychologically unfit to testify. I don’t know if this incident caused his subsequent imbalance, but he’s in no position to be “fired,” and you certainly shouldn’t accuse him of negligence.

  346. 346.

    Mnemosyne

    @Catsy:

    The argument is that he should lose his job because his job involves working with children, and he walked away from a child rape in progress without even attempting to intervene.

    18-year-old and older college students are now classified as children that McQueary shouldn’t be allowed near for fear of moral corruption?

    @shortstop:

    Are you under the impression that he had some some of coma-inducing head injury that rendered him blacked out and unable to speak—while, amazingly, enabling him to accept ongoing employment from the people he knew were protecting a pedophile—between 2002 and when the investigation finally got to him?

    No, I’m under the impression that his testimony was not morally neutral when it comes to adding things up. You can disagree that it outweighs his previous actions, but I don’t think you can rationally go the 300baud route and insist that he only did the absolute minimum required by law when he testified in graphic and specific detail about what he had witnessed and what his superiors had failed to do after he told them.

  348. 348.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Mnemosyne:

    Oh fuck off, you half wit.

    Don’t think you’ll get back in good with your BJ fellows by denouncing me as a pedophile. Christ, what a douche you are.

  349. 349.

    Samara Morgan

    @Yutsano: oh, that wasnt for your benefit….it was for geg6 or whoever made the stoning comment.
    But you also have the good ol’ Murrican judeoxian heritage. in a country with mandated freedom of religion you can be bahai or w/e you are and i can be Sufi.
    but the anti-intellectual substrate of Protestant America shaped us both.
    We were shaped by Christendom.

    i just overcame it better.
    :)

  350. 350.

    Mnemosyne

    @dms:

    I don’t know if this incident caused his subsequent imbalance, but he’s in no position to be “fired,” and you certainly shouldn’t accuse him of negligence.

    He took the same actions that McQueary did (reported to his supervisors but not to the police), but no one is calling for his head. That was my only point.

  351. 351.

    Angela

    @dms: Im pretty sure the janitor has dementia. Not sure what the link to trauma would be for that, but I guess it is possible.

  352. 352.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kola Noscopy:

    Yes, your paen to the joys of adults having sex with 10-year-olds certainly wouldn’t make anyone think you’re a pedophile. I can’t imagine where anyone would get that impression.

  353. 353.

    Mnemosyne

    @Samara Morgan:

    I’m just putting it into terms that moral cripple KC might be able to comprehend. Apparently even that wasn’t simplistic enough for him, though.

  354. 354.

    Kola Noscopy

    @300baud:

    Yes, you are talking about LEGAL consent, and I agree. But that is part of what will be hashed out in court.

    I am talking about practical consent in the moment, and how often it may be the case that hysterical adults double-traumatize minors with their over the top reactions to these kinds of things, in which the kid is made to feel they took part in THE WORST THING EVER POSSIBLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, whether it was consented to or not.

    I think the asst. coach may have made the best possible decision in that moment…no one here knows for sure; you’re all talking out of your asses, so why shouldn’t I?

  355. 355.

    Catsy

    @General Stuck:

    Mnemosyne made a simple observation that in real life, there are shades of gray in the moral measurements of human beings.

    No he didn’t. He spent more than an hour of his time coming up with hypothetical excuse after excuse for a grown man who saw a child being raped and walked away because he was afraid to lose his job–a job where he is responsible for other children.

    You may be able to avoid dealing with that by stepping back and turning it into a sterile philosophical question, but that is the fact of what happened.

    And a pack of self righteous snarling jackals jump on to prove their courage, sitting safely at their computers.

    Yes, a pack of self-righteous snarling jackals insisting that it is morally wrong to walk away from a child being raped, and that the person who did so has no business being responsible for the well-being of children regardless of what he’s done since.

    So vicious, we are.

    They all failed, some morally, others legally, but at least one has made an effort for redemption.

    Oh, well that makes it all better then!

    Maybe Mcqueary should be fired, I don’t know. But if so, the odds of the next witness simply walking on by is increased for this man’s scalp.

    Unpack this weapons-grade stupidity, please. Because I’m not seing it.

    If McQueary is fired because he walked away from a child being raped, that will encourage others to walk away from a child being raped, because…? Profit? Sunspots? Arglebargle?

  356. 356.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne:

    No, I’m under the impression that his testimony was not morally neutral when it comes to adding things up. You can disagree that it outweighs his previous actions, but I don’t think you can rationally go the 300baud route and insist that he only did the absolute minimum required by law when he testified in graphic and specific detail about what he had witnessed and what his superiors had failed to do after he told them.

    Snap! Snap! Talk to me, not the voices in your head. I have not commented on what 300baud said. I’d like you to comment on why you keep skipping over the near-decade between when McQueary ran away from a rape in progress and when he finally testified. How do you account for his never saying a word to authorities in the intervening years? How would you characterize his continuing to work for people he knew were protecting a pedophile and thus taking an active role in the cover-up?

    I fully recognize that you’ll pretend that I’ve said something else completely and respond passionately to your fantasy conversation, but I’m just putting this point out there–as others have already done and already been ignored by you–for readers who possess an honesty you patently lack.

  357. 357.

    Mnemosyne

    The other thing in my mind has been the Bryon Widner story. Should he be allowed to atone for his past actions, or were those actions so terrible that no amount of action on his part can possibly make up for them?

  358. 358.

    Kola Noscopy

    @Mnemosyne:

    your paen to the joys of adults having sex with 10-year-olds certainly wouldn’t make anyone think you’re a pedophile

    Your willful lack of reading comprehension is as telling as your self righteous do gooder tones. fuck off. It’s folks like you who talk a righteous game who are diddling the altar boys and goats.

  359. 359.

    eemom

    @Kola Noscopy:

    oh pleeeez.

    If you continue to insist that you’re not Tim, I shall have to conclude (a) that you are an amnesiac, or (b) that not only do you have a psychological identical twin in this world, but that both of you have found your way to the same blog, which strikes me as somewhat improbable.

  361. 361.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    I’d like you to comment on why you keep skipping over the near-decade between when McQueary ran away from a rape in progress and when he finally testified. How do you account for his never saying a word to authorities in the intervening years? How would you characterize his continuing to work for people he knew were protecting a pedophile and thus taking an active role in the cover-up?

    It’s all part of his moral failure. My question is, do you think his moral failure is worse than that of the others who participated in the cover-up? Was it exactly the same? Does the fact that his grand jury testimony led to the whole conspiracy blowing up make any difference at all, or are his past crimes of silence something that can never be atoned for?

  363. 363.

    Quaker in a Basement

    What a load of nonsense.

    The locker room shower is no place for anyone to be having sex with anyone. If the GA had walked in on two consenting adults of any gender, his immediate response should have been “Hey! Stop that right now!”

    Why should his reaction in this case have been any less?

  364. 364.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne:

    My question is, do you think his moral failure is worse than that of the others who participated in the cover-up? Was it exactly the same?

    My question is: This question of yours having been answered at least several dozen times in this thread, why do you persist in asking it as though you were emotionally incapable of processing the answer you’ve received? Oh…wait.

  365. 365.

    Mnemosyne

    I guess this is my point: of the gigantic carload of assholes involved in this story, McQueary seems to be the only one who realizes that what he did was horrible and may be willing to atone for it, and yet he’s being treated more harshly in this thread than the actual child-raping pedophile.

  366. 366.

    West of the Cascades

    @Samara Morgan:

    if not for that lone graduate assistant, the grand jury could have come up dry.

    @Mnemosyne:

    Does the fact that his grand jury testimony led to the whole conspiracy blowing up make any difference at all

    Fail: you’re ignoring Victim 1 and Victims 3-8, who weren’t the subject of McQueary’s testimony. According to the presentment, six of the other seven victims (besides the one McQueary witnessed and Victim 8, whom the infamous janitor witnessed) actually testified to the grand jury.

    It’s nice to see that the both of you read the presentment and took the time to inform yourselves about the allegations that are known so far before you decided to apologize for McQueary’s part in covering up what he testified he saw happen to Victim 2.

  367. 367.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    This question of yours having been answered at least several dozen times in this thread, why do you persist in asking it as though you were emotionally incapable of processing the answer you’ve received?

    Other than that I disagree with the answer I keep getting?

  369. 369.

    Nutella

    per the Guardian:

    Athletic Director Tim Curley has been placed on administrative leave and Gary Schultz, interim senior vice president for finance and business, will return to retirement so they can defend themselves, Penn State said in a statement on Monday.

    Not fired, I note. I hope if they are convicted of the perjury charges that they are fired but I won’t hold my breath.

  370. 370.

    Samara Morgan

    Nah, its a pack of pompous selfrighteous holier-than-thou chihuahuas preening their sanctimonius moral plummage.

  371. 371.

    Mnemosyne

    @West of the Cascades:

    So victims 1 and victims 3-8 were able to testify that they gave graphic details of their abuse to Paterno and that they had knowledge that he covered it up?

    Proving the abuse was the easy part. Proving the concurrent conspiracy by the university to cover up for the criminal would be a hell of a lot harder without, say, someone who participated in the conspiracy for 10 years coming forward. I wonder who that former conspirator turned witness could be?

  372. 372.

    shortstop

    @Mnemosyne: Because you’ve been bulldoggishly defending him for four and a half hours. Had you defended Sandusky, Paterno, Schultz, Curley etc. in the same ludicrous, reality-denying, goal-post-moving way you’ve defended McQueary, you’d have seen equally strong pushback. You just can’t seem to grasp this point, because to do so would require you to back off a bad position, and you are pathologically unable to do that. Ever. You have never, ever done that here or at any other blog where I’ve seen you comment.

  373. 373.

    MCA

    I’m with General Stuck – jeebus, people, leave off with the righteous indignation. Mnemosyne and others are not apologizing for anyone. Zero people on this inordinately long thread have intimated that McQuery (if, in fact, we have the full set of facts) did absolutely nothing regrettable or that he’s absolved of all guilt. Some posters have merely pointed out that the world is complex, and that people are complex, and noted the fact that crimes, even heinous ones, are witnessed ALL THE TIME in all sorts of circumstances and not broken up or reported, and are trying to make sense of how people unfortunate enough to be put in a situation like this routinely do NOT do what is clearly the right thing in a moral vacuum. No one’s defending the rape of children, no one’s defending the PSU football program, no one’s saying this assistant coach is fully morally absolved. But a bunch of you people are calling them morons and monsters. Chill, people.

    There are a lot of people in this thread crucifying others for not just bowing to the purity of their spotless moral positions. It makes you look like Republicans. Shortstop and eemom, I’m pointing your direction specifically.

    Everyone here regrets that people like Sandusky exist. Everyone here thinks it sucks that institutions and human weakness oftentimes lead them to not act in what’s clearly the correct way. Everyone here recognizes that McQuery does not appear as pure as the driven snow.

    Also, we don’t know shit yet. I’ll note another thing burnspbesq probably had in mind upthread: Duke lacrosse. Everybody stop jumping to conclusions and judging.

  374. 374.

    West of the Cascades

    @Mnemosyne:

    So victims 1 and victims 3-8 were able to testify that they gave graphic details of their abuse to Paterno and that they had knowledge that he covered it up?

    Proving the abuse was the easy part. Proving the concurrent conspiracy by the university to cover up for the criminal would be a hell of a lot harder without, say, someone who participated in the conspiracy for 10 years coming forward. I wonder who that former conspirator turned witness could be?

    what planet do you live on? is the weather nice there?

  375. 375.

    Nutella

    McQueary seems to be the only one who realizes that what he did was horrible and may be willing to atone for it

    How do you know he realizes what he did was horrible? All that can be inferred from the grand jury document is that he, in their opinion, testified truthfully when called before the grand jury and the others lied.

    Not committing perjury is a pretty low standard for atonement.

  376. 376.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    Had you defended Sandusky, Paterno, Schultz, Curley etc. in the same ludicrous, reality-denying, goal-post-moving way you’ve defended McQueary, you’d have seen equally strong pushback.

    Why would I defend them? Unlike McQueary, they covered their asses in their grand jury testimony and minimized what they’d done to protect Sandusky. If McQueary hadn’t testified the way he did, it would have been another round of “oh, gosh golly, we all had no idea this was going on!” and no one at the university would be looking at perjury charges (and worse) right now.

    I’m defending the one guy from UPenn who was willing to testify that there was a conspiracy. Again, if it was so very easy for him to testify to the conspiracy, why didn’t anyone else do it?

  378. 378.

    Mnemosyne

    @West of the Cascades:

    what planet do you live on? is the weather nice there?

    It’s a bit chilly today, actually. But at least it’s a planet where we realize that having one of the conspirators testify that, yes, there was a conspiracy is a lot more believable than when outside people testify that they couldn’t get their complaints heard.

  380. 380.

    General Stuck

    @Catsy:

    No he didn’t.

    Mnemosyne is a she, asshole. And save me the smug moral superiority, Internet heroes are a dime a dozen. And you lie that Mnemosyne or I have said that Mcqueary was not morally wrong for not intervening. Just that his actions or inactions do not equate with the others. Who apparently might be criminally liable. The rest of your comment is just plain stupid./

    Let me unpack your arrogant ass.

  381. 381.

    Mnemosyne

    @Nutella:

    Not committing perjury is a pretty low standard for atonement.

    He’ll probably be fired from UPenn and will never find another coaching job, but that’s punishment more than atonement, which is why I said he may be willing to atone for what he’s done, not that his testimony counts as atoning for his failures.

    His grand jury testimony would be evidence of remorse, not atonement. Atonement would be something more like 1,000 hours of community service working with abused kids so he really, really understands how horrible his original moral failure was.

  382. 382.

    geg6

    Ah, little Samara thinks I give a shit which branch of her stupid religion she belongs to. Sorry Samara, but yours is no better than any others, including Christianity or Judaism or Scientology or Mormonism. They’re all a bunch of garbage as far as I’m concerned. The whole idea that only Christians are judgmental is fucking hilarious. Hate to break it to you, Samara, but HUMANS are judgmental. Even atheists are judgmental as I’ll prove right now by saying that I judge you to be an idiot. Perhaps you’re an idiot savant, but you’re an idiot nonetheless.

    None of these people should be responsible for the well being of children. And for the asshat who’s claiming that the 18 and older young men on the football team are in no danger because they’re adults, you are very ignorant of how college sports departments work. They have dozens of camps every year for under age children. Hundreds of kids are under their care every year.

  383. 383.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to hear that I have to go into meetings the rest of the afternoon and probably won’t make it back to the thread. Try not to beat KC too hard — you know he likes it.

  384. 384.

    eemom

    We are none of us ever gonna get out of this thread alive. Abandon hope, all ye who click here.

  385. 385.

    Catsy

    @Mnemosyne:

    Other than that I disagree with the answer I keep getting?

    That makes no sense at all. At this point I have to wonder whether you’re simply not paying attention to people’s replies, or if you’re trolling us. So I’m going to assume good faith and take one last stab at getting through.

    People on this thread–such as aimai or myself–keep arguing that McQueary was wrong for walking away from a child being raped, and that he should lose his job.

    You keep responding to them with something to the effect of “why is what he did worse/more deserving of punishment than the people who covered up or did the actual raping”? Which would be a useful response if anyone was actually arguing that.

    No one–count that, categorically, absolutely no one–has argued that McQueary should be punished more harshly than those who either perpetrated or covered up the rape.

    No one–least of all the people you keep responding to, who keep telling you in no uncertain terms that they don’t actually think that. Everyone seems to pretty much agree that the others should lose their jobs too.

    Which renders the entire premise of your question moot.

    You seem to be interpreting the fact that much of this discussion focuses on McQueary as an implication that he is a worse person than the rapist or his enablers, or that he should be punished more severely. But no one is arguing that.

    The reason why the discussion focuses on McQueary is because he witnessed a child being raped and did nothing to stop it, which is not true of the others.

    We know the rapist is a scumbag. Granted. Not much to discuss there about his motivations, state of mind, circumstances. Not a lot of gray area to go over and bat back and forth. Next.

    We know that anyone who covered for the rapist is a scumbag. Granted. There’s some discussion about how much they knew and whether their actions were criminal or simply scummy, but the general consensus is pretty clear: scumbags. Okay. Next.

    Then there’s McQueary. Unlike the others who covered for Sandusky, we know that McQueary actually witnessed one of these rapes. That makes his case different. It introduces a new set of moral and ethical questions to resolve. It makes his case more interesting to discuss–there is more to hash out. And we have a handful of people expending a whole lot of energy to defend him against an argument that nobody is actually making, which drags out the discussion and makes the focus of this conversation on him disproportionately stronger–not because we are singling him out for greater opprobrium, but because it is a more active topic of discussion.

  386. 386.

    Catsy

    @General Stuck: You might want to refer to eemom’s comment–and my subsequent reply–for a friendly pointer on how to correct a gender error. Yours is a case study on Don’t Be That Guy.

    The rest is more of the same bilge. Troll on, Sparky.

  388. 388.

    General Stuck

    @Catsy:

    It introduces a new set of moral and ethical questions to resolve.

    By you? moralizing twit on a blog. Spare us

  391. 391.

    General Stuck

    @Catsy:

    The rest is more of the same bilge. Troll on, Sparky.

    LOL, didn’t see eemom’s correction. Please carry on wanking with the high and mighty moral superiority you effuse. Lord knows, us peasants could stand it. Sparky.

  392. 392.

    Satanicpanic

    I’m going over the GOS where people discuss their views in a calm and respectful manner

  393. 393.

    Samara Morgan

    @Catsy: get that broom handle out of your butt and pay attention.

    It introduces a new set of moral and ethical questions to resolve.

    apparently not.
    its just an oppo for you and aimai and eemom to play quien es mas moral.
    it doesnt matter what you would have done– you weren’t there.
    you just want to claim moral superiority.

    i think a more INTERESTING question is not how McQueary should be “punished”, but how the perp and his enablers should be punished.
    And if the victims should come forward, as the prosecution requested.
    I dont think i could do it…i think i’d choose blessed anonymity.

  394. 394.

    Angela

    @West of the Cascades: Right, and we all know that victims are always believed. Did you watch the PA AG’s press conference? the GA’s credible testimony was one of the keys in going forward with the prosecution.

  395. 395.

    General Stuck

    @Angela:

    Thank you. You are the only person on this thread that actually knows what they are talking about concerning child abuse.

  396. 396.

    TuiMel

    @Mnemosyne:
    I can only respond to the information I have. And, if there are more – and I don’t dispute that there could be – that changes nothing of McQueary’s culpability IMO. From the information available to me, it appears that PSU has a bunch of rotten apples that threaten its entire barrel. They would be wise to turn a metaphorical pressure washer on the place and clean away these rotten parts, i.e., everyone who actively or passively facilitated the cover up, which enabled Sandusky to violate more victims. My reading of the indictment has led me to conclude that Paterno knew ol’ Jerry was up to no good and chose to try an quarantine his behavior away from his program rather than confront the actual problem. Paterno needs to go (as do the administrative mucky mucks), and if he does, many people much less culpable than McQueary will likely lose their jobs, as coaching transitions generally result in people being replaced by the new guy. Some will find it more difficult to find similar levels of employment than others, and I believe that is as it should be.

  397. 397.

    dms

    @Cluttered Mind: You know, I really hate to bring this up because the situation is so totally different. So, I’m probably showing poor judgment–certainly not the first time. I’ll try to make this short.

    I went to a college that had an honor code, whereby we, as students, were honor-bound to report incidents of cheating, on tests, for the most part. Were we not to report an incident, the cheating was later discovered, and our knowledge of said cheating uncovered, we were liable for not reporting it.

    I had a roommate whom I witnessed typing assignment papers while a library book was propped up next to him and he was quite obviously typing the words contained therein. The school also had a library policy whereby you could take out a book for as long as you wanted; the only return stipulation being that if someone else requested the same book, you then had to surrender it.

    When witnessing this, I stupidly assumed for the first couple of times, that my roommate was attributing the words that he copied with footnotes. Strange goings on for a paper that was supposed to be original thought, but what did I know?

    It just so happened that I got a D (and a “see me”) on the first English paper I wrote in college, and having been the valedictorian of my high school class, that came as quite a shock. I never admitted my grade, but I indicated to my roommate that I apparently didn’t have the requisite skill to write a college paper. He kindly offered to allow me to read his paper, for which he had gotten an A. We had different professors, but were taking the same level English course. So, I took him up on the offer and read it, and it was rather impressive. No footnotes, however, but I told myself that those copying moments must have been for other papers in other courses.

    Fast forward to first semester finals, my roommate has half the stacks of the college library in our study room, and I decide to pull a book off the shelf to use as study. Suddenly, I’m reading paragraphs that sound awfully familiar, but i can’t understand why because I had never read this book before. This goes on for pages, and suddenly, the light in my stupid head goes off. I recognize it because it’s my roommate’s paper. I find his paper and compare it with the book. His entire paper was plagiarized…every word.

    I’m shocked. I know I’m duty bound to report him. So, what do I do? I call my mother, a teacher, who taught me that honor and truth were extremely important concepts, always to be followed. Her advice: well why don’t you talk with him. You don’t want to ruin his academic career. Had she found me guilty of the same offence, she would have immediately sent me to the Tower, with instructions to put a hot poker up my ass hourly. But, for him…talk to him…you don’t want to ruin his life.

    I was crestfallen. And I did nothing. And that was my moral failing. And two years later, he was caught plagiarizing a movie review for the student newspaper. But nothing happened to him, and he graduated summa cum laude. Last I heard, he was teaching ethics at a private boys school.

    But, you know what, I never asked my mother for advice again.

  398. 398.

    MCA

    I’ve generally been repelled by the ad hominems and prone to defending mnemosyne in this thread, even if I don’t fully agree with her positions, but I will say this: Mnemosyne, you REALLY need to learn the difference between PSU (Penn State University, home of the Nittany Lions and this tragic scandal) and UPenn (University of Pennsylvania, home of Wharton and Ivy League football games), and stop using the latter in your discussion of this stuff. Penn alums here (I’m not one) are I’m sure not pleased with having their institution confused with the apparently pedophile protecting sports factory up in the mountains.

  399. 399.

    Kola Noscopy

    Mnemosyne, you REALLY need to learn the difference between PSU (Penn State University, home of the Nittany Lions and this tragic scandal) and UPenn (University of Pennsylvania, home of Wharton and Ivy League football games), and stop using the latter in your discussion of this stuff. Penn alums here (I’m not one) are I’m sure not pleased with having their institution confused with the apparently pedophile protecting sports factory up in the mountains.

    Yes, because there has NEVER been age-inappropriate sex of any kind at UPenn or PennU or Pee-ewww, or whatever. Please.

  401. 401.

    aimai

    @bin Lurkin’:

    Angela’s experience is neither here nor there–she’s talking specifically about rape and abuse cases within families. That’s much closer to the way people handle “domestic violence” incidents than the way most of us treat street crime/assault between strangers. Its obvious that family pathologies take place in a different way and with a different incidence of interference and reporting than do incidents between strangers.

    I’m sure there’s plenty of research on this point–no doubt if McQueary had walked into a public park filled with strangers and found one raping a 10 year old boy he would have intervened and we wouldn’t have heard all this convenient guff about how “normal people would be shocked” and “wouldn’t intervene.” No. Normal people would intervene. Normal people intervene every day when their selfish interests aren’t involved.

    If you want to argue that McQueary treated Sandusky as a kind of “father figure” and that the entire football team and university consituted a kind of sick family structure in which the raping of one ten year old boy was merely incidental to the perks of the patriarchy I won’t disagree.

    But it remains, then, that implicitly we are arguing and knowing that a normal person who did not consider themselves part of “the family” would instantly have intervened when they saw a crime of this magnitude being committed. Its actually instinctive to go to the rescue of a crying child. Most normal people can’t avoid doing it. People routinely risk their lives to do it. McQueary’s behavior is inexcusable–especially since the commission of the crime was also the evidence required to shut Sandusky up years ago.

    Oh, and for fucking Matoko Chan it ought to be obvious that because a discussion centers on one person’s culpability does not mean that I don’t think the others are more culpable. I do. In fact I think that Sandusky and Paterno’s culpability, as well as every supervisor who looked the other way, is equal–not legally but morally. They deserve, obviously, everything they get. But McQueary is the only one whose accidental viewing of the crime causes me to wonder. Because he didn’t set out to be a criminal accessory and he had the clearest evidence, the most brutal evidence, of the crime. Lots of the other guys were mentally “protected” from knowledge by willfull ignorance. That doesn’t make them less guilty, to me. But it makes them less psychologically interesting.

    aimai

  402. 402.

    Kola Noscopy

    @aimai:

    Its actually instinctive to go to the rescue of a crying child.

    Please point out where, in the GJ report, it is indicated that the kid in the shower was “crying?” You keep making this sort of reference and it’s only to events happening in your empty head.

  404. 404.

    Angela

    @aimai: Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never limited my statements or knowledge to abuse or rape within families.

  405. 405.

    Samara Morgan

    @aimai: jaysus.
    wtf is wrong with you?
    you raved up on McQueary in COMMENT EIGHT.
    you are buncha old biddies playin’ quien es mas moral.

  406. 406.

    MCA

    @Kola Noscopy: This is rather inane. If you were a Michigan alum, this shit were going down at Michigan State, and some poster kept talking about the dastardly coverup of the UofM administration, you wouldn’t be annoyed by that? What the hell does the fact that “age-inappropriate sex” may have occurred at some point at the other institution have to do with the fact that this is not their scandal? Was I being overly pedantic? Possibly. If someone writing about a scandal like this was unknowingly dropping my alma mater’s name in there instead of the correct one, I’d hope someone would correct them before any of the 200 million people who don’t actually give a shit about college sports and might not immediately associate the story with the correct school got the wrong impression of mine.

  407. 407.

    kay

    Just so we know, anyone can call a county or city child protective services agency and report suspected child abuse. It’s confidential.

    Thousands of people do that every day.

    Maybe Penn State could hold a meeting where they tell staff about this amazing 40 year old child abuse reporting system we have in all 50 states.

    Maybe Penn State athletics dept. Could notify their staff of this amazing

  408. 408.

    tavella

    What particularly irritates me about all the internet heroing and strutting and bragging about how tough they would be, etc., going on here is that recognizing the ways that our monkey brain will betray us is utterly vital to keeping it from doing so. Understanding that you, too, may find yourself walking past someone bleeding to death on the sidewalk. You too may find yourself hurting someone because someone of vague authority told you so. You are just as vulnerable to confusion and uncertainty, just as vulnerable to bowing to authority, just as vulnerable to letting concern for yourself overwhelm concern for others.

    When I took emergency first aid courses, one thing they emphasized was to act; to not wait for others, to act and to tell others to act, to train us out of following our monkey brain. They teach the Milgram experiment to kids in the hopes that they will learn a little more about how they can find themselves harming others, and resist it a little bit more. So I’ll take the handful of people in this thread who recognize how easy it is to fail over those who are quite sure that they will be glorious heroes. Because I trust those people who know their potential weakness to work against that and act instead of standing stunned when life actually slams them with a horrid surprise.

  409. 409.

    kay

    There’s a story up on CNN right now.

    2 kids held in a cage inside a mobile home.

    CPS got a call from a person who will never be named.

    Perhaps athletics staff at Penn State could have figured out how to make a phone call.

  410. 410.

    Samara Morgan

    @kay: not up for takin’ a walk in Boo Radley’s shoes, are you Kay?

    But you were willin’ to walk in Erik Kains……as long as you thought you had converted him.
    /spit

  411. 411.

    kay

    Nah. No one ever reports to CPS.

    They get thousands of cases every year, but no one ever reports.

    They drive around and look for unhappy children.

  412. 412.

    Kola Noscopy

    @kay:

    oh jeez…even MORE strutting, self righteous keyboard heroics from one of BJ’s most notorious know it alls; comparing apples and oranges, as per usual, natch.

  413. 413.

    Suffern ACE

    @Angela:

    Right, and we all know that victims are always believed. Did you watch the PA AG’s press conference? the GA’s credible testimony was one of the keys in going forward with the prosecution.

    It appears that there are eight victims in the report, but only three eyewitnesses to any seriously inappropriate activity. There is the janitor at Penn State, who saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy of about 11 or 12, who did not come forward, the ID of his victim is not known. The Janitor is suffering from dementia and can not testify now. There is the elementary school wrestling coach who walked in on Sandusky and Victim 1, but was told that they were just practicing wresting moves. Another child who witnessed Sandusky driving with his hands on Victim 1’s knees and tickling him-who had also had the same done to him. And the GA, whose victim’s ID is not known.

    The other victims do not have any corroborating eye witnesses. I do get the sense that this case may not have proceeded without that testimony as the GA was the only one who had witnessed sexual activity who could testify that the activity wasn’t something like tickling or practicing wrestling moves.

  414. 414.

    kay

    Maybe Penn State could put the CPS number on a card, and give it to their lawyer.

    I’m sure he was stumped by this knotty legal issue he faced.

    What to do, what to do…it’s a dilemma, all right.

  415. 415.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Suffern ACE: I’ve resisted commenting at all in this over-long thread, and recognize doing so this late may mean it never gets read, but there is a good example in all this, and that’s in the case of the most recent victim, that precipitated the actions. A high school wrestling coach witnessed inappropriate behavior in the school where Sandusky was volunteering. He went to the principal, who barred Sandusky from the school and called the police. Didn’t let him keep his keys and office for eight years, didn’t talk to someone up the chain who might or might not do something, he called the cops, like he’s supposed to.

    This minor detail is being lost in all the rest of the noise.

  416. 416.

    Suffern ACE

    @Gin & Tonic: Yep. And not surprisingly, they didn’t have to lie to explain why they hadn’t done anything sooner. The principal thought Sandusky’s behavior was odd and suspicious, but hadn’t witnessed anything that could be seen as physically inappropriate (just emotionally clingy and demanding). The coach saw physical activity taking place in an odd location and that started an investigation in earnest.

  420. 420.

    xian

    @bin Lurkin’: I call straw man. The focus is on him (I didn’t know his race till it was mentioned in this thread) *because* people are bending over backward to excuse him. No one is excusing the greater moral failings and monstrosities of the more powerful.

  421. 421.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @tavella:

    THIS.

    People do NOT routinely intervene. An appallingly large percentage of the time, they don’t even go so far as to call 911 when someone is bleeding in front of them. This is why the first thing we’re taught in first aid courses is to take command, pick someone out of the crowd gathering nearby, and say “You. Call 911. Come back and tell me when you’ve done so.”

    It’s rare for someone who hasn’t at least gone through a thought experiment of “what I’ll do if this happens” to react well to a surprise. This is not a situation most people will have ever thought to find themselves in.

    I know precisely two people I am confident would step in immediately. One, because he’s done it before in a simple assault. The other is ex-law enforcement. Both, AFAIAC, are heroes.

  423. 423.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Suffern ACE:

    The coach saw physical activity taking place in an odd location and that started an investigation in earnest.

    Where did you hear this? It’s not in the presentment.

  424. 424.

    Mnemosyne

    @MCA:

    D’oh! Sorry about that, UPenn alums. I was so busy spelling the people’s names right that I forgot to double-check the name of the school!

  425. 425.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: This is from the CNN story on the case:

    The boy breaks off contact with Sandusky. Later, his mother calls the high school to report her son had been sexually assaulted and the principal bars Sandusky from campus and reports the incident to police. In grand jury testimony, the principal, Steven Turchetta, recalls Sandusky’s behavior as suspicious, and said Sandusky was often “clingy” and “needy” when a student no longer wanted to spend time with him. The ensuing investigation reveals 118 calls from Sandusky’s home and cell phone numbers to the boy’s home.

  426. 426.

    Suffern ACE

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Sorry. My bad. The coach came across Victim 1 and Sandusky in a weight room and testified that he found it odd that they were practicing wrestling there and found it odd (page 4). That corroborated one of the stories that Victim 1 testified about. That was in 2006/7. It wasn’t until 2008 that Victim 1’s mother called the school and the principal reported.

  428. 428.

    xian

    note to self: start reading BJ in Firefox, install Pie filter, and stop reading shit by idiots who can’t frame and stick to a single intellectually honest position.

  430. 430.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Yeah, I knew the high school coaches had testified. It was the statement that one of them made the report that triggered the investigation that I was wondering about.

    @Suffern ACE:

    No problem. I had to skip large swaths of the thread, so I was just wondering if I’d missed something that had been glossed over when the coaches’ testimony was summarized but came out later.

  431. 431.

    Suffern ACE

    @suzanne: Don’t. Unless you want to express your outrage in this matter in such universalist ways to include drone strikes, you’re just another one of those hypocrites. And a judgmental Christian to boot. The real issue is whether or not Sandusky loved the boys and the boys loved him back. Especially the ones he met when they were eight.

    /fart

  432. 432.

    suzanne

    @Samara Morgan:

    but the anti-intellectual substrate of Protestant America shaped us both.

    I’d just like to point out that it was the Catholic Church that held Mass in a language the laity didn’t speak for hundreds of years, all for the purposes of keeping knowledge to themselves.

    Could you start being funny again, please? I’m totally over the stupid, belligerent you.

  433. 433.

    suzanne

    @Samara Morgan: Why are you so bothered by people discussing moral issues? You keep reminding us how religious you are. You’re the one who announced that you were a “social justice warrior”.

    Oh. Wait. I forgot. You’re not religious because you seek spiritual fulfillment and moral betterment. You’re “religious” because it pisses off your parents and is trendy.

  434. 434.

    Ruckus

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
    The point is not what people do. Even if that is what the majority of people do/would do. The point is what they should do. What having any morals at all should tell them what to do. This is a full grown adult, in a job that should be a mandatory reporting position. He should have known what to do. I’ve known small children 4-5 years old that know to call 911. As soon as they can.
    Not doing that is wrong. He should have intervened, that would have been the most correct thing to do. Failing that, or if he felt that was wrong, he should have called 911, not someone for guidance. Failing that the next day he should have reported this to the police, campus or local, not his boss. He didn’t do any of that. He failed on many levels. He was wrong. The circumstances of why he made so many wrong decisions? Doesn’t matter. What he should do or what should be done to him to “make up for it”? Not my concern. Anyone seeing what he saw should have done much more than he eventually did. That many would not do any different does not justify or excuse the inaction.
    It’s called being a good human. That many of us fail at being a good or even passable human at times does not excuse him or us from doing better.

  436. 436.

    Kola Noscopy

    @suzanne:

    Did I really just read that? Oh, my GOD.

    Oh, you poor, sheltered, desperately delicate flower; you tender dear. Some people really do like butt sex, even at a tender age. Doesn’t mean this kid did in this incident, but then, we don’t know, do we? Either way, it’s statuatory rape, but go ahead and bathe in your need to believe that no one likes anal, and that no young person ever, anywhere, enjoyed sex with someone a lot older.

    Of course, your faux outrage quite possibly is a mask to divert attention from the fact that you’re taking it in the rear nightly but don’t want the baby jesus to know.

  438. 438.

    Samara Morgan

    @suzanne: jaysus h keeryst inna handcart.

    This is INSTITIONALIZED abuse. Sandusky had a freakin FOUNDATION where he “groomed” potential victims for TWENTY YEARS. He was PROTECTED and ENABLED by the college football industry at Penn State. the rot goes right to the core.
    And the old harpy patrol here wants to wil’ out on a grad student that had the guts to testify before the Grand Jury and tell the truth…
    aimai and eemom and catsy are just flashing their moral certitude plumage. They dont actually give a shit about the victims.
    awesome.

    Oh. Wait. I forgot. You’re not religious because…

    And when i point THESE FACTS out, juicers start screaming eeiie! look! a dirty muslim trustafarian college student!
    i am religious. And its none of your bidness, is it?
    If i say something about my religion here its because i understand it. And americans OBVIOUSLY don’t. Or we wouldn’t have spent 14.3 trillion taxpayer dollahs, seven thousand soljah lives, and 10 years FOR NOTHING.

  440. 440.

    Samara Morgan

    @Suffern ACE:

    Unless you want to express your outrage in this matter in such universalist ways to include drone strikes, you’re just another one of those hypocrites. And a judgmental Christian to boot

    this is the third time i have tried to redirect the convo to the victims, and what should happen TO THEM.
    You obviously dont give a shit either.

  441. 441.

    Barry

    @Mnemosyne: “Sorry, I’d rather put the blame with the guy who committed the assault and the guys who actively covered it up rather than the guy who foolishly thought that reporting what he’d seen might actually get the university to take action.”

    Blame follows power; the guys with the power are first and foremost to blame.

  442. 442.

    Surly Duff

    @Mnemosyne:

    It’s all part of his moral failure. My question is, do you think his moral failure is worse than that of the others who participated in the cover-up? Was it exactly the same? Does the fact that his grand jury testimony led to the whole conspiracy blowing up make any difference at all, or are his past crimes of silence something that can never be atoned for?

    I have not seen anyone claim that the McCreary should be the fall guy for this incident and cover-up. The claims are that he is culpable because he walked out on an act of abuse to contact his father to receive guidance on whether to report the incident (do you not see a problem with his moral decisions right there?), and then ignored the problem afterwards because his supervisors were sure to take care of the problem. Then, ten years later he testifies before a grand jury. And that should, what, absolve him?

    In 2002, the GA left the scene of child abuse, did not contact the authorities and only notified the school administration after consulting with his father. He covered his ass, but failed to report a crime to the authorities for the sake of his job. Then, for ten years he does nothing, knowing that the child abuser is still using PSU facilities and running a football camp on campus for children. Finally, after the ten years, McCreary is (likely) given a subpoena to testify before the grand jury, and in he makes the exemplary decision not to lie before a gradn jury, thus covering his ass legally for purjery.

    Yes, I’d say that he made poor decisions and his lack of moral conviction to stop abuse in 2002, and allow a cover-up of the abuse to occur, makes him culpable. Not more culpable than those administrators and Joe-Pa who had more authority within PSU, but I cannot absolve him for finally telling the courts the truth about the abuse ten years, and who know how many victims, later.

  444. 444.

    Argive

    @tavella:

    This. This. A thousand times this.

    Yes, McQueary definitely should have done more. But doing the right thing can be very hard, and until you’ve been in that situation and acted appropriately, I really don’t think you can say for sure what you’d do. I notice that no one attacking McQueary has responded to the idea that he might just have been so shocked at the moment of discovering Sandusky and his victim that he couldn’t think of what to do and calling his dad was done more out of instinct than anything else. But let’s face it: in the end, we don’t really know anything about him. All of the judgments about his personal character on this thread are just conjecture. Lay off the guy already.

  445. 445.

    Samara Morgan

    @Argive: but that would not give aimai and eemom and catsy and the rest of the old harpy patrol an opportunity to flaunt their moral certitude.

    I’m a five foot nothing middle aged woman and there’s no way I would have walked past that shower without dragging that child to safety.

    then the rest of the BJ barnyard had to display their moral chops too.

  446. 446.

    Surly Duff

    @Samara Morgan: I wasn’t there..yes, and your point would be? I am not going to say I would have responded differently if placed in that same situation. I hope I would, but have no idea. Stopping past abuse on a discussion board is much easier than doing so in person. Acting ethically is not simple, and humans are flawed individuals who often act in their own interests at the expense of others. I can acknowledge that the grad asssitant had a difficult decision when he witnessed abuse. However, I also can acknowledge that anyone who witnesses child abuse and fails to report it to the authorities has failed that child who was a victim of the abuse.

    You go ahead and slice it anyway you want, but because PSU and all of the individuals that knew of that instance of abuse did nothing, they failed to protect or assist the child that was abused and the children that were subsequently abused as a result of their inaction.

  447. 447.

    Samara Morgan

    @Surly Duff:

    I also can acknowledge that anyone who witnesses child abuse and fails to report it to the authorities has failed that child who was a victim of the abuse.

    like i said, put that moral certitude back in your pants, flasher.
    unless you have walked a mile in the other guys shoes you cannot say that.

  448. 448.

    Less Popular Tim

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    The locker room shower is no place for anyone to be having sex with anyone.

    You and I have been watching different movies

    Edit: All the movies I refer to involve adults only, just to be clear

Comments are closed.