It was WHAT he covered up - not that he covered up some random embarassment. And HOW LONG it was covered up, giving the pedo time to hurt other kids.
I am starting to agree with Token. No way do you not get this. No way do you really believe what you are typing. You, Mr. Fire and Brimstone, Fuck Em and Feed Em Fish heads?
I just broke the line.
No way.
Said this elsewhere, but when you take away all the high and mighty posturing from people who claim to know with absolute certainty what they'd do in a situation like this; when you step back and ask yourself "what did Joe know, when did he know it, and how much did he know"; when you recognize that the report is essentially a series of isolated incidents (in a way) and that no one person was aware of the totality of it I think there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.
If all we do is rant about what woulda, shoulda without taking the time to figure out how otherwise good, decent, moral and righteous men and women turned away from what we've established as their moral obligation how can we ever understand enough to prevent the next situation?
All I'm trying to do is figure out why and come up with some explanation for how a person with Paterno's standards (by all accounts) could have become entangled in this.
If you asked me to rank the relative morality of everybody on this board (based on what little I know of you) against Paterno (based on everything I've ever read and heard about him)? Before last week he'd have been like Moses. We'd have been like the heathenites. So now we're all living by a higher standard than him? If it could happen to him, it could never, ever, ever happen to any of us? That's what we're saying?
Haven't we all seen basically good people bury some awful shit in a misguided effort at self preservation?
Just trying to figure it out, that's all. Don't think I've ever said it was right, just trying to figure out how somebody who (again, by all accounts) is a person of high moral fiber got where he is. How did it happen?
Everybody keeps saying "anal rape of a child." There's no evidence Paterno knew that. According to the Grand Jury testimony McQueary is the one lone soul with knowledge of that event. If Paterno was told his friend and confidant was butt fucking a kid, then yeah. That changes things. No testimony to that affect (yet) and (in my mind at least) it's unfair to make the assumption that he was told. McQueary didn't say he told him that. If that's what McQueary saw and he failed to communicate the gravity to Paterno or anybody else? That changes things.
JoePa not reporting anal rape. Again. Are we all sure that's what Paterno knew to report? If you can show me in the testimony -- his or McQueary's -- where that was specifically communicated to him, please do. I never saw that. If he was specifically told that and buried his head in the sand? Different story.
If you "just know in your heart he knew" that's something else altogether. I want to know the absolute facts without broad assumptions.
How do you know what Paterno allegedly "covered up." Can you tell me from the grand jury testimony that his knowledge extended beyond "some horsing around in the shower" and a vague allegation of improper conduct? It's not unreasonable for me to consider that Sandusky was a master at explaining, obfuscating, whitewashing the deal with everybody around him. Pretty clearly obvious he was good at it. Why is it completely impossible to conceive that he was able to convince his good friend -- a guy who knew him for 40-something years -- that there was nothing to it? Particularly when reports up the ladder came to nothing? Is it impossible to believe that maybe, just maybe, Paterno was fooled by a master deceiver (and yes, fooled in part because he didn't want to believe that a guy he called a friend and confidant was capable of such)?
I guess I'm unwilling to accept that Paterno had full knowledge and allowed this to pass until and unless somebody can show me explicitly where he was told.
That's my only real sticking point and I've attempted (badly it appears) to convey that in about three dozen different ways.
I'm trying to look objectively at the facts in evidence and not make leaps of logic in terms of what somebody "must have" known.
My mistake for thinking out loud and assuming people would be able to step back and objectively consider possibilities.
But for the last time, given everything we know about the man, I have an extremely difficult time reconciling that with the image of some deviant who was complicit in the molestation of children. All I'm doing is considering alternative answers that will help me understand how things got to this point. Apparently I'm the only one willing to try to figure it out.
Given time to consider, I can see how Penn State is right to remove him. But the side to that you're all failing to see is that the decision is also made in the interests of preserving the dignity of the school. They're not firing him because he was wrong, they're firing him to hopefully salvage the season and to distance the school from his "dirt." That's the only part of it that feels wrong I think.
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