The mop-up.

I got plenty of nothin’ today. Municipal election rewrites tapped me out this morning, so let’s make today an open thread, your call. But I nominate:

* The Paterno/Penn State scandal, still unwinding. A good NYT column on it makes the obvious point:

In the world of big-time college sports, (the term “scandal”) has been cheapened by overuse. If these allegations prove to be true — Sandusky has maintained his innocence — they’ll be a far cry from football players’ trading memorabilia for discounts on their tattoos.

A better comparison would be the sexual molestation scandals that rocked another insular, all-male institution, the Roman Catholic Church.

The parallels are too striking to ignore. A suspected predator who exploits his position to take advantage of his young charges. The trusting colleagues who don’t want to believe it — and so don’t.

Even confronted with convincing proof, they choose to protect their institution’s reputation. In the face of a moral imperative to act, there is silence.

We like to say “never again” in our society, right before it happens again.

* Elections elsewhere. As Kirk observed in yesterday’s comment thread on the Ohio returns, particularly as it pertains to the Issue 2 blowout, “A law that just required state employees to pay a certain percentage of their health insurance and pensions could have withstood a referendum, but those dumbasses had to over-reach and try to bust the unions.” Exactly. They overreached. Heady from their 2010 victories, convinced the world was backing them, or perhaps fearful they’d never get another chance, the GOP went all-in. And lost. Interesting portents for next year, I’d say.

And a person is not a person, no matter how small — at least in Mississippi.

And whatever else you like. See you back here tomorrow.

Posted at 10:34 am in Current events |
 

77 responses to “The mop-up.”

  1. Scout said on November 9, 2011 at 10:49 am

    Good news from my little corner of the world this morning. With the election of Greg Stanton for Mayor, Phoenix remains an oasis of blue sanity in a red state full of gun-totin’ hillbillies and religiously insane furriner haters. And even a city notorious for electing the latter, Mesa, voted to recall Russell Pearce, the architect of SB1070. Looks like the tea party over reach is finally seeing the end of its days.

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  2. adrianne said on November 9, 2011 at 10:52 am

    Alas, as long as powerful institutions exist, their first instinct is to protect their own and circle the wagons. It happened with the Catholic Church, it happened with Penn State, and it will happen with another institution.

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  3. Dorothy said on November 9, 2011 at 11:01 am

    I’m glad JoePa is retiring but he should have done that at least 4 or 5 years ago, and not because this awful situation has pushed him into it. You’re probably right, adrianne, but for heaven’s sake I hope this is a lesson learned and after this, reaction is more appropriate when it happens at another institution. Graham Spanier needs to go, too, no doubt about that at all.

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  4. Julie Robinson said on November 9, 2011 at 11:24 am

    The Catholic parallels are sickening. The whole thing is sickening.

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  5. LAMary said on November 9, 2011 at 11:24 am

    I think it’s most likely to happen in instutions that people not only trust, but consider organizations that build character. I have an officemate who is not only a fundy evangelical, she’s fanatical about football. Both her sons play and she never misses a game, raises ridiculous amounts of money for the team, and considers me and my sons atheist commies for being neither football fans or evangelicals. She posts crappy quotes on Facebook about football and God building good men. If she could find a quote that included guns she would post those too.

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  6. Jeff Borden said on November 9, 2011 at 11:31 am

    I heard on CBS Radio this morning a bunch of idiot Penn State students cheering Joe Paterno outside his house. Jesus H. Is your pathetic football program really more important than a willfully blind old man who not only tolerated but protected a child raping bastard? Guess the answer is yes.

    Liberals win so few victories these days that I found myself happier than I probably should be over the results in Ohio. Certainly, it is wonderful to see a smug little shit like John Kasich beaten like a dog at the polls, though in fairness, his reponse to his drubbing was fairly classy. But next year is a long, long ways away and we know the right-wing gazillionaires will be able to funnel unlimited amounts of their filthy lucre into the Buckeye State. And all the other battleground states, too.

    Still, even an avowed cynic should be allowed a few moments of pleasure, so I’m going to allow myself one day to think that maybe. . .just maybe. . .the pendulum that has swung so severely to the right has at least slowed and, please God, maybe even begun to swing back a little. Just for one day.

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  7. Sherri said on November 9, 2011 at 11:36 am

    McQueary and Spanier should be next. To me, the biggest sign that all of them were more concerned with themselves and the reputation of the organization is that none of them bothered to even find out who the child was. They were in a hurry to get that rug over the mess. Which makes me believe that they knew it wasn’t an isolated case, and that if they looked deeper, they’d find more than they wanted to know.

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  8. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 11:38 am

    The business about how a proposition to require employee contributions on pensions and health care would have won is misleading, since public sector employee unions in Ohio had already agreed to exactly that, as they did in Wisconsin. Next step in Ohio, investigate Kasich’s putting Ohio public pensions in the dumper with really bad investments when he was shilling for Lehman? Was that a ploy, to create problems that would make attacking unions feasible? Bastard needs to be run out on a rail.

    My brothers and I were all involved in sports, three of us in football. I don’t think any of us or my parents ever gave the slightest thought to “character building”. It was just something we were good at and really enjoyed doing, and my mom and dad were very supportive, as they were about any interests any of us pursued.

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  9. 4dbirds said on November 9, 2011 at 11:50 am

    Heck I’m even pleased that the Virginia Senate will be a tie (although Republican LT Gov can break that tie). Republicans were so sure they would win the Senate outright. They worked very hard on redistricting to do it. There are still sane people who come out to vote.

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  10. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 11:55 am

    Next time you hear Mittens babbling about privatizing “entitlements” picture him drooling, playing with himself, and flinging feces. How many elderly Americans would be starving to death and homeless right now had Shrub managed to hand Social Security over to Lehman, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns ? Seriously, the inhabitants of Monkey Island could have managed the US financial sector as well as those captains of industry did during W’s Reign of Error.

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  11. Jolene said on November 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    I was impressed w/ the recall of Russell Pearce, Scout. Good job to you and your fellow Arizonans, Scout. Too bad about the beatdown of the independent redistricting commission, though. I’ve hoped that such commissions would cash on and, eventually, lead to more competitive legislative races, but it’s hard to make progress when people are willing to undermine reform processes in this way.

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  12. Sherri said on November 9, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Here’s a thought about the 2002 victim that just occurred to me: what if McQ/Paterno/Curley/etc did find out who he was, and decided that they would help him out as part of keeping the whole thing quiet? We know that Sandusky promised other victims that they could be walk-on football players at Penn State; what if Sandusky promised the same to this young victim, and they decided to take him under their wing and honor the promise? He would be of an age to be a walk-on on the team right now. It would fit with the “we take care of our own” culture.

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  13. brian stouder said on November 9, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    A better comparison would be the sexual molestation scandals that rocked another insular, all-male institution, the Roman Catholic Church.

    I heard Jeffrey Toobin make that same incisive point on CNN, during the mid-day BREAKING NEWS explosion when the prosecuting attorneys had their press conference.

    Not about the Roman Catholic Church, per se, but about the absence of women in the decision-making loop, as the big, impressive, and much-loved institution faced (or evaded) the truth of what was happening within its walls.

    Not to over-simplify, but the more I pondered that observation, the more truthful it became.

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  14. Deborah said on November 9, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    LA Mary athletics and god do seem to go hand in hand for some reason. There is a certain zeal that is demonstrated. These people like the zeal. It makes life simpler, you believe or you don’t believe, you win or lose. It’s black or white, no complexity or ambiguity. Can you tell I’m an “atheist commie”.

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  15. Julie Robinson said on November 9, 2011 at 12:21 pm

    The result of yesterday’s local election is an all-male City Council. Hmm…

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  16. paddyo' said on November 9, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    Talk about zeal: What, after all, is the truly dominant American religion? Look how many millions of believers worship every Saturday and Sunday, coast to coast, at the pixilated altars of NCAA football and the NFL.

    And the Catholic Church priest-sex-abuse freakshow (“scandal” doesn’t quite cut it anymore) isn’t just a “better comparison.” It’s the comparison. These could be mirror images — and JoePa and Spanier are the enabling archbishops (if not pope and cardinal — you can decide which is which).

    Edit: And Sandusky looks nothing if not like a hale and hearty late-middle-aged pastor, sans cassock and collar, the kind of guy we parochial school kids all jostled to be near when he’d stroll across the church parking lot while we were all at recess.

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  17. brian stouder said on November 9, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    Julie – I’d almost have traded away Henry’s re-election, if we could have kept Karen Goldner in City Council.

    As Alex said, Paula Hughes is a credible leader with a credible record, who ran an incredibly and relentlessly negative campaign. True enough, Henry’s campaign slung lots of mud back at her, but – to me – the defining moment of the campaign was channel 15’s somewhat clunky debate between the two main candidates and the hapless independent.

    The debate structure was ‘clunky’, in that the rules attempted to spice it a bit with (fairly restrictive) rules wherein candidates could (at specified moments) ask follow-up questions of whichever of their opponents they chose. Mayor Henry unfailingly asked questions of the hapless independent guy (who acted very much like a guy waiting on a bus) – the better to minimize Paula’s face-time (and attack opportunities) on TV.

    The bus stop guy always “passed” when it was his turn to ask a question; and Paula took the opportunity, at one point, to flatly accuse the mayor of graft (with regard to the empty site where there used to be a junk yard, directly north of downtown and across from Science Central).

    Mayor Henry held his temper, seemingly resisting the urge to trade accusations, and rose above it.

    Anyway – back to tha all-men thing. I think if a few powerful women had been in the Pen State loop, the fate of the children would NOT have been dismissed out of hand, as in fact happened.

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  18. Jolene said on November 9, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    An interesting behind-the-scenes look at why the Russell Pearce recall succeeded in AZ. Best not to get on the bad side of the Mormons, it seems.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/arizona-recall-why-russell-pearce-lost/2011/11/09/gIQALj6a5M_blog.html

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  19. LAMary said on November 9, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    That’s it exactly, Deborah. The quote of the week from my officemate, who was on the phone with someone who has a kid in the same ultra evagelical high school her sons attend gossiping about how ugly other kids senior photos were:
    “look at that boy’s eyebrows. So gay. Why would his parents send a gay kid to a Christian school?”
    There is so much wrong with that statement, but I doubt there would any point in mentioning how offensive it is to the person who said it.

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  20. beb said on November 9, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    As a non-athlete I’ve long found the obsession with college sports repugnant. Also smug, self-satisfied and insular. I was shock but not surprised by the charged of child abuse. And of course the comparison to the Catholic Church was the first think that came to mind. Personally I think JoePA should go to prison, perhaps to share a cell with the Pope because by their inaction they have encouraged this crime to go on.

    The people of Mississippi surprised me by rejecting the life-begins-at-conception bill. I assumed that people would buy into the anti-abortion thinking and not consider the implications for non-abortion problem pregnancy, natural miscarriages and the failure of two thirds of fertilized eggs to not implant on the Uterus.

    I’m an pinko atheist as well.

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  21. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    Back before anybody knew there was any such thing, the “women in power” meme was pretty potent. Always made me think immediately of Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher. War mongers with the best of them. And I’d say, without reseervation, I’d haave turned in Sandusky without a second thought, if I didn’t end up getting arrested for bashing his skull on the shower wall.

    Connecting sports and religious zealotry is a pretty fair example of “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc”.

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  22. Julie Robinson said on November 9, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Karen Goldner is the first politician we put up a yard sign for, and she brought such common sense and sanity to the position I was shocked at her defeat. Under the garbage contract she brokered more items can be recycled, the city saves money, and rates for customers went down. What a bitter disappointment.

    It’s very difficult to understand how, when Penn State’s police department first investigated Sandusky’s actions in 1998, he admitted wrongdoing, yet both the university and local district attorney did nothing. 1998. Enough time for a whole new generation at-risk boys to be abused. I weep.

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  23. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    Who says Harmanator is not a big leaguer? This gaffe is worthy of Pesky holding the ball, or Buckner not getting down on Mookie’s grounder.

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  24. LAMary said on November 9, 2011 at 1:43 pm

    caliban, it’s not religion or athletics per se. It’s the elevation of those organizations to a status of being unquestionable. Both are human endeavors that by their nature invite abuse and corruption. This isn’t saying everyone involved in religion or athletics is abusive or corrupt. I’m saying that because they are so trusted and that they reinforce certain beliefs and encourage good feelings in some people, bad actors have opportunities and access to the worst sorts of acts.

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  25. moe99 said on November 9, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    I think sports (particularly football) are a stand in for combat these days, Caliban. Historically the military has been infused with religion, the better to bind the “Band of Brothers” together into cohesive fighting units. All the way back to the Crusades and before. So it seems a logical extension to infuse sports with the same religious fervor that imbued fighting troops for all those centuries.

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  26. Brandon said on November 9, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    @LA Mary: You should tell your co-worker that backbiting is a sin.

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

    http://bible.cc/2_corinthians/12-20.htm

    Another helpful verse: John 7:24: Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

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  27. Jeff Borden said on November 9, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    Something Herman Cain said yesterday made me palm slap my forehead. To wit, “I have never acted inappropriately with anyone, period.” Is there a human being breathing today who can actually say that with a straight face? The number of times I have acted inappropriately would require Deep Blue to calculate, but apparently the Hermanator is a very, very special man.

    He’s toast. He was always toast. He’ll milk this gig as long as he can and graduate to the warm if fleshy embrace of Roger Ailes and his propaganda crew. He can be the next Juan Williams.

    Concerning Penn State, I’d argue that nothing short of a blanket round of firings is required from the university president down. Screw this idea of figuring out a nice way to let JoePa go. He is complicit in the rape of a little boy. There are no extenuating circumstances. He should be gone yesterday.

    The sports talkers in Chicago yesterday were noting there is little the NCAA can do to Penn State because this is a felony criminal investigation, but they were wondering aloud what would happen if other schools in the Big Ten and beyond that are scheduled to play PSU simply said, “No. We will not participate in a football game with a school where such a heinous act occurred and was covered up.” But that will never happen. Big-time football and basketball programs are multi-million-dollar enterprises and nobody is going to pass up that payday, no matter how sleazy and arrogant the foe.

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  28. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    There is no way that sports invites abuse and corruption “by its very nature”. I think its a biased viewpoint to apply that analysis to religion, too. I’ve been religious most of my life, but I have always thought that questioning religious authority is the most vital aspect of faith. Had psycho sports coaches too, not really abusive, just beyond the limits of normal human psychology. But I’ve come across similar nutcases in other fields of endeavor. I have never given the remotest thought to any connection between athleticism and Godliness, and didn’t know many that made the connection. I wouldn’t deny that the US military has problems along these lines, as manifested by the proselytizing and peer pressure at Air Force Academy. I just think some of y’all are generalizing about two things you find distasteful.

    For me, religion is about philosophical rigor and intellectual pursuit, so I read Teilhard and pretty much hear yada-yada when the Pontiff pontificates. Athletics? Mens sana in corpore sano. Is there a connection that can be made between the two disciplines? Sure, it’s possible, but damned if I see anything unhealthy about it. I’m also unconvinced it does much particular good to hold institutions responsible for the bad acts of individuals, without identifying blame with the individual bad actors. Should Penn State or the Catholic Church disappear for their institutional transgressions? Are there institutional transgressions? Should Germany be a pariah nation to this day? An entire society and nation nurtured Nazism.

    In the end, people do not owe allegiance to any institution that can be placed aahead of allegiance to fellow humans. I think it would be a better world if everyone behaved according to that simple rule, which Jesus expressed eloquently in the Great Commandment. To bad the Rapcha crew has a blind spot for that bit of Scripture.

    Moe, there’s more than enough combat to stand in for combat these days. Sure, when the Iroquois nation invented lacrosse, it involved skulls and longbones, and certainly resembled combat. It kept the various tribes from killing each other to.

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  29. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    But that will never happen. Big-time football and basketball programs are multi-million-dollar enterprises and nobody is going to pass up that payday, no matter how sleazy and arrogant the foe.

    And the money funds research facilities, for instance, and a wide variety of other sports for men and women which would otherwise not exist. Do coaches get paid obscene salaries? Sure, but much of the cash comes from grants from Nike, etc. (Divestment is a whole n’other subject.)

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  30. Jeff Borden said on November 9, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    Caliban,

    I said the same thing. No one is going to stop playing football regardless of the circumstances. Period.

    Yes, the big-time programs do fund a lot of other things beyond ginormous stadiums and eight-figure coach salaries. That’s my point exactly. Big-time sports are like heroin to universities and they will do whatever it takes to get their fix. If the next assistant coach at PSU decides to sacrifice a virgin on the 50-yard line, the other schools will look the other way, wait for the groundskeepers to wash away the blood and offal and put on their helmets and play.

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  31. KLG said on November 9, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    Looks like Spanier will be gone by the end of the day. Paterno should follow him out the door. Screw this “I’ll retire at the end of the season.” That privilege is forfeit. Archbishop Paterno needs to do penance for the rest of his days on this earth. As for McQueary, he should go, too. My question to him is: You called your daddy instead of the Penn State Police Department when you caught a grown man raping a 5th-grader? Pitiful.

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  32. nancy said on November 9, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    Another great post by the Lawyers, Guns and Money boys. Connects many dots.

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  33. Deborah said on November 9, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    At the next game where Paterno is present the people in the stands should shun him. This was done at Washington University in St. Louis when Phyllis Schlafly gave a lecture. A bunch of students and faculty stood up and turned their backs to her when she started her speech. I think they stayed standing that way through the whole thing (I wasn’t there). They didn’t say a word. I think it’s a classy way to protest.

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  34. Jolene said on November 9, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    The NYT reports that Spanier and others tried twice on 2004 to get Paterno to resign. That he was able to blow them off shows who held the real power at the institution.

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=865078&f=19

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  35. Dorothy said on November 9, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    And not just in 2004, Jolene. My daughter is a Penn State alum (class of ’05) and we are natives of Pittsburgh. I have cousins who are graduates from the 80’s. The “it’s time for Joe to go” mantra has been repeated for at least 10 years. Everyone assumed, I think, that he was going to die while still coaching. I think he was never pushed very hard because if it got out that he was given no choice BUT to retire, whoever delivered that message would be persona non grata at PSU from then on.

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  36. Kirk said on November 9, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    A better demonstration would be if Beaver Stadium were only about half-full (or less) this Saturday. But, sadly, empty seats will be few and far between, and dear old Joe will be cheered to the heavens by the sobbing crowd.

    And that’s the second time I have heard Phyllis Schlafly’s name today. I didn’t realize the hate-filled old bag was still around.

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  37. nancy said on November 9, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Beaver Stadium will never be empty, because those folks live in a bubble more ironclad than the one over Grosse Pointe. What a disconnect from reality. It’s like they have no idea how this is playing elsewhere. It will be years before Penn State put this behind them, and not just the football program. The whole school. This is Catholic Pederasts 2.0, and they don’t even know it.

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  38. Dorothy said on November 9, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    Penn State’s Daily Collegian editorial today: http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2011/11/09/PR_at_PSU.aspx

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  39. brian stouder said on November 9, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    Really, truly; Penn State football ought to fold up it’s operations, and sit out next season entirely; and maybe the one after that. For what they’ll no doubt be paying Paterno, they could easily keep their existing scholarship commitments to their players.

    Then, in a year or two, they could come back with new people (and especially – including women) running every aspect of their program.

    I cannot resist saying that, if Joe Paterno threw his hat into the Republican presidential primary right now, he’d (no doubt) jump right into a statistical tie with Romney; and gain the neutron bomb-like ceaseless defense of Rush Limbaugh, and the other flying monkeys of the right wing airwaves, who are now busily attacking even the children of Cain’s accusers…but we digress.

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  40. Jeff Borden said on November 9, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Speaking of Republican presidential candidates, I invite you all to visit this link:

    hermancainpac.com/2011/11/herman-cain-accuser-karen-kraushaar-works-for-obama-and-she’s-ugly/

    Yep. It’s an official Herman Cain website featuring a photo of one of his accusers standing next to a horse, while the cutline notes that Karen Kraushaar is the one on the left. Har, har, har. Get it? She’s an ugly white bitch, people, ain’t that funny? Like dear Herman would ever hit on an unattractive skank like that. Oh, man, my sides are splitting I’m laughing so hard.

    This kind of treatment is exactly WHY I believe Herman Cain is not simply a man who regards sexual harassment as his due –look how handsome he is!– but a man more than capable of sexual assault on numerous occasions. These women are being mocked, poked, prodded and reviled by every right-wing scum-sucker with a keyboard, not to mention the better paid ranks of bastards like Rush Limbaugh, who, of course, God’s gift to women.

    Obviously, it’s time for Herman to climb back into the clown car and go away, but it will probably take the joint press conference of all the women he leered at, groped and came on to before that occurs.

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  41. Judybusy said on November 9, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Jeff, thanks–I think–for that. And people say there’s no more need for feminism.

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  42. KLG said on November 9, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    More on the Archbishop’s potential liability:
    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/michael_mccann/11/09/joe.paterno/?xid=cnnbin

    I wonder who will pay his lawyers? There are 8 victims in the Presentment. At least one more has come forward. How many more? I’m guessing about 25, total.

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  43. Sherri said on November 9, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    The odds of Penn State shutting down football for a season are approximately zero. The only instance I can think of where a university voluntarily shut down a sport due to scandal was back in the early 80’s when the University of San Francisco stopped its basketball program for several seasons because it had gotten out of control, with booster payments to athletes, academic cheating, and covering up athletes’ crimes. That was a long time ago at a Catholic university, and about the last time I can think of a university president showing any spine when it comes to athletics.

    The players would be allowed to transfer to other universities and be immediately eligible to player football without sitting out a year were Penn State to do so, however. But State College would never stand for it, and neither would the rest of the Big 10; it would seriously devalue their product. SMU football has never recovered from their NCAA-imposed death penalty in 1987.

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  44. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    What did anybody ever expect from a wizened old Sicilian guy that’s been wearing yellow tinted glasses day and night for year. For non-football fans, Penn State running backs are notorious for always turning into turds the day after draft day. What really stands out is their commonn criminal records for domestic abuse. In Football Athens (fair enough?) the Head Coach Mark Richt has been criticized for letting everybody plaay and not running up the score, is well known for professing Christian faith, but more by good deeds than by holy roller shit after football gaames. I am sure, he would never have sat by and let anything like that happen. Not that kind of guy. UGA has a historical figure of legendary stature equal to Joe Pa, Vince Dooley, who I thought had far more integrity than Paterno. No way, no how. And as for a permissive attitude, Athens cops and UGA cops are in a constant competition over busting football players for underage drinking? Seriouslly? In a Town and Gown town?

    My feelings about this discussion go back to my own HS days, probably. How was I supposed to navigate being a jock and an NHS Scholar with 6 Fives on AP exams who was also in plays and did community outreach in Sodality? In my opinion, growing up this way is a good thing, though I’m not necessarily an example of why, exactly. When I went to Georgia, I worked for the AD as a tutor. Scholarship kids came to study hall every night and worked harder academically and cared more about their grades than any of the non-athletes that were my friends and acquintances. So anything that smells like jock-bashing, particularly the astoundingly idiotic characterization of soccer players as smart kids as opposed to the alleged Nanderthals that played football, has always struck me as base and unfounded prejudice. Does a soccer player learn a playbook so he knows what every other player is going to do at a particular time? I know there were HS football players that were swaggering assholes. But if you denigrate the intellectual requirements for being a good FB player, you pretty much stamp your likeness on the obverse of the same coin. One guy’s pedophilic urges and the fact he was Paterno’s go to offensive coach? That does not sully football as an intellectual and athletic pursuit. That is all I’m saying. UGA had a coach that mirrored Sandusky. Name was Erk Russell. Guarantee, Sandusky would have died that night had Erk walked in on that abomination. Skull through the tile, in a thousand pieces, and in Georgia, Erk would have been found innocent. That’s what I would have done.

    As far as blaming Catholicism for the abuse, shit, there is a disconnect. When my parents first moved to Memphis, we didn’t know anything about Babdiss. My brother Chris and I went to a Babdiss summer day camp. We were most certainly targets of abuse. We were pretty boys and the best athletes in the camp. We told my parents about telling dirty jokes. And got yanked out of there immediately. We made up a song. “Do you you wanna go to camp, No I don’t, Cause I don’t like dirty jokes. There was some real pressure there. Now, has anybody identified American Babdiss as the deepest pockets anywhere? Why not. If this was one little Babdiss Camp in Memphis? what was going on all over the youth ministry? Me and Chris, we just were not buying this. We have always looked out for each other.

    The other obvios thing, and I’m sure you will howl, but the recovered memory syndrome is absolutely a fact, and apparently any adept can make some experience memorable. I don’t deny there are monsters the Catholic Church should have locked up. On the other hand, there are memories that are beyond that. I was motally abused by Babdiss born-again. I was too smart for them. There is a ways to go to know what the deal is. Babdiss boys, they are particularly interested in boys instead of girl. Penn State as I said earlier, would never get another recruit ever.

    If you are a football fan’ maybe youu see: No decent recruit ever.

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  45. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    If you ask me if Bobo had walked in on that scene and not just killed the guy? Don’t think so. And if Vince were presented with that shit? Woulda dropped a dime. No shit.

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  46. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    I realize my personalized opinion might seem extreme, let me explain, I would have made his heaad hit through the wall. Is there some problem with that? Guy is raping a child, not a question. How ’bout that in Happy Valley?

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  47. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    Some people understand who acts this way not anything

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  48. Bitter Scribe said on November 9, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    Did she work for Obama before or after her nonexistent son worked for Politico?

    Oh, wait…she works for the federal government, Obama is the president, so she works for Obama. Got it.

    That actually makes sense. It’s why Dubya and his House Hispanic, Alberto or Fernando or whatever his name was, thought they could treat U.S. attorneys like BushPAC staffers.

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  49. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    SHE DIDN’T DO QNYTHING QT QLL, WHEE2QWMJUWTNQWWQULTE, BUT HQWN;T 6H3n$

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  50. Bitter Scribe said on November 9, 2011 at 5:59 pm

    Caliban, time to turn off the computer and sober up.

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  51. Jolene said on November 9, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    I’m not sure how “official” that Cain site is. Even for an unconventional candidate, as Cain proclaims himself to be, it’s a thin and raggedy offering.

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  52. Julie Robinson said on November 9, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    “Catholic Pederasts 2.0”. Succinct and brilliant.

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  53. Suzanne said on November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Looks like the NCAA will have to put not reporting child rape in your locker room on the books as an infraction. If they are really feeling randy, they might just make raping a child in the locker room an infraction.

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  54. coozledad said on November 9, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    Mike Tyson does a pretty good Cain. Especially the leer at the end of the ad.

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  55. caliban said on November 9, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    Julie, It’s also wiote tru that I had a situation with the most of my life and the only time my Kid savior kid was attacked was by some some Lying sacks of shit that were Babdiss. on the consideration weree youth pastors, How is this different> Now I’d be willing to admit to these aholes fooing with me. This is something that should be presented against the whatever these shitheekls can go, The idea that this is somehow limited to Catholics is bizarre. And them Babdiss have so much more cash, this is ridiculous.

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  56. brian stouder said on November 9, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    Well, that GOP debate was pretty funny…if you like slap-stick, and/or theater of the absurd.

    Watched the whole thing; called Pam out and backed up the DVR so she could see the the whole perplexed-Perry moment.

    The Cain swipe at Speaker Pelosi (aka “Princess Pelosi”) was telling, if unsurprising.

    And now the BREAKING NEWS is that Paterno is fired.

    If they had fired him even as late as two days ago, it would have been a little more impressive. As it is, that university is still scraping past the iceberg, and they’ll soon by down by the bows, I think.

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  57. cosmo panzini said on November 9, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    So here we go go again: J Borden and a few others are going all Nancy Grace on Joe Pa and Herman Cain. Have any of you wondered why we haven’t heard anything from the ten-year-old who was supposedly butt-fucked? Or that, with Sandusky claiming innocence, we haven’t heard even a smidge of his story? Granted, it doesn’t look too good right now, but haven’t there been enough Duke lacrosse team type hoo-hahs to cause people to step back and exhale a little before convicting Joe Pa and banishing him to Dante’s, what, third level of Hell? And with no pension either, Goddamit.

    As for the Herman Cain mudhole, I think I’ve figured that whole thing out, with help of course from Gloria Allred, who is to womens’ rights what Jesse Jackson is for blacks: your basic Pimptown hustler making a living getting publicity and monetary settlement for (insert cause). It all came together when I spotted Ms. Allred standing and scowling next to one of Mr. Cain’s accusers. Let’s see, a hefty fee for the lawyer lady, and probably a bunch more money for a dubious claim settled many years back before anybody dreamed Mr. Cain would run for president. Like Charles Barkley says, I might be wrong but I don’t think so.

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  58. nancy said on November 9, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    We haven’t heard from the 10-year-old, Cosmo, because no one knows who or where he is. That’s one of the repulsive facts of this whole case — in their dithering and sandbagging, the kid slipped away. And please, in the interest of not sounding like one of these barking shitheads at this press conference, remember this isn’t some he-said-she-said thing; this was a grand jury investigation with multiple witnesses, of at least two years’ duration. This firing is a bare-minimum action that just might save a major university from global disgrace. Although what happens in State College later tonight might negate the whole thing.

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  59. brian stouder said on November 9, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    Although what happens in State College later tonight might negate the whole thing.

    At this very moment, there’s a large and growing crowd in State College – and it sounds like it’s on-edge enough that a few troublemakers could push the thing over into a street riot.

    Cosmo, I’ll see your “Here we go again” gambit and raise you with a cynical thing I learned tonight, from a sports reporter: this investigation dragged on for two years, culminating this past week….right after Paterno passed Eddie Robinson on the all-time wins list.

    What’s that saying? – “Justice delayed is…” what?

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  60. KLG said on November 9, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    Cosmo: You need to re-read your history of the Duke case. Start at “Durham in Wonderland.” There was never any credible evidence of anything before Nifong started down the road to disbarment, within hours of that lamentable party. This is the culmination of a long investigation; the Presentment is compelling.

    As for what BS writes, the timing is perhaps iffy. But here’s timing that is not iffy at all: Sandusky was first “caught” molesting a young boy in 1998. He “retired” in 1999, at the age of 55 while widely recognized as Archbishop Paterno’s likely successor. Yeah, right. Nothing to see here, move along.

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  61. Jolene said on November 10, 2011 at 12:13 am

    As to why Sandusky hasn’t spoken publicly, he can’t. He’s been indicted, and his lawyers have told him not to talk. He said so himself to a gaggle of reporters gathered on his lawn a couple of days ago.

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  62. Dexter said on November 10, 2011 at 12:37 am

    Open thread day doesn’t allow for much variety when we are all consumed with sadness, anger, and hatred. I wonder what an open thread day would have yielded on VE Day, VJ Day, or November 23, 1963. This goes to show what a huge national story this Penn State case is becoming. This thing is just getting rolling. If nine have come forward, the rule of speculation points towards 36 more. Tip of the iceberg…many people will never come forward for personal reasons.

    This is Veterans Day week, and I have spent my past two evenings watching “Vietnam in HD” on The History Channel.
    The New Yorker preview warned me: this is no honest presentation of the war, but what the hell! It’s The History Channel, Duh!
    I stopped watching THC long ago, for the way they present history, all mixed up with fiction over fact , well, it’s ridiculous. I won’t list all the reasons I know this, my statement is to be taken in a general way.
    So, the first thing they do after a warm-up is to get into The Gulf of Tonkin incidents on two separate 1964 days.
    A basic knowledge of these two events are essential to any understanding of what was to follow.
    They never happened like they were told to Congress.
    It was a bizarre plot to get Congress to grant unlimited war powers to LBJ, so he could conduct war actions without having to bother Congress with any issues.
    And Johnson began using the word “aggression” on a daily basis.
    We were brainwashed into believing that on two separate days, August 2 and 4, 1964, The USS Maddox had been attacked. The first attack by three torpedo boats was documented but the second “attack” was simply gleaned from reports from listening stations, re-formed in time and place by Secretary of defense R. Macnamara, and used as “proof” that Congress should turn LBJ loose on the “commyanissts”.
    This TV show spent about one minute on this…and it sounded like a 1964 DOD newsreel. But hey, it’s The history Channel!
    The rest of the documentary was fascinating, using reporters’ footage and other hand-held camera’s finished product to give a real feel for the US involvement in that war.
    I just wonder if anybody but us vets watched it, I doubt many.
    Damn, they surely didn’t sanitize it, and that’s good. They showed plenty of dead US GIs, and I’m so callous to seeing that sort of film it didn’t bother me. Oh, I am sure I’ll dream of it tonight, but I always save my war dreams for Veterans Day week. And to see this project on my big HD TV was very appropriate. Sort of makes up for some of the political distortions in the film.

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  63. Cara said on November 10, 2011 at 12:41 am

    “That’s why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can.” Paterno

    This quote made me wonder how the BoT felt about being told what they “should”~~but I didn’t have much time to contemplate what their reaction might be.

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  64. Sherri said on November 10, 2011 at 12:55 am

    Evidently, both Paterno and Spanier are claiming that they never knew the details of the 2002 incident. Paterno recalls McQueary vaguely referencing “fondling” or “horsing around.”

    A grown man naked in a shower with a 10 year old boy in a building where he expected they would be alone, and Joe Paterno isn’t at all suspicious.

    That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

    I realize I’ve been harping on Paterno, but this just makes me so angry. I’ve been a fan of college sports my whole life, and I’ve seen a lot of scandals, but this one is just awful. That Paterno, who was supposed to be one of the good guys, could put his football program ahead of doing the right thing,it’s just hard to take.

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  65. Dexter said on November 10, 2011 at 12:58 am

    The president, too, brianstouder.

    “STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)—Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and school president Graham Spanier were fired Wednesday night by the board of trustees amid the growing furor over how the school handled child sex abuse allegations against an assistant coach.”-END_

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  66. caliban said on November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am

    When I think about what Vince Dooley would have done, I am fairly certain he would have gone to law enforcement, I do believe that had a GA in that situation at UGA he would have intervened immediately, I was connecter with the slosest thing you could bet to that bullshit all she wtoyr, I was a tutor, and I will tell you those kids worked thir asses off and they cared about their grades, Excessiveley.
    I never scrooged a grade. I took this job seriously, And so did my students. The assholes that were the graduate assistants, fine and dandy, if they didn’t assume the kids were dumber than they were, if that were possible. I mean these assholes were so moronic on the English language it was fucking hilarious, Who did they think they were?

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  67. caliban said on November 10, 2011 at 1:11 am

    I know Joe is a saint and everything, But what is wrong with him

    ? Shat an asshole. Compared with Vince Dooley and Bobby Bowden, What an asshole, Neither of those guys would have put up with such a piece of shit,

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  68. caliban said on November 10, 2011 at 1:13 am

    What a remarkable whatever what hey’

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  69. caliban said on November 10, 2011 at 2:14 am

    I GUARANTEE, Vince Dooley would not have stood up for a child molester, in a million years, And he is legenadary as Paterno, Probably smarter in the long run, He got Herschel, Joe didnt, Herschel was not a five-star recruit Do these morons have a clue? Let’s ask Bill Bates. after he was trampled.

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  70. caliban said on November 10, 2011 at 6:29 am

    All bozos:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/rick-perry-forgets-agencies_n_1085249.html No shit? What the hell is wrong with people?

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  71. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 10, 2011 at 7:14 am

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUA2rDVrmNg&feature=youtu.be

    Nothing more needs be said. (The correct answer was “What is Energy, Alex?”)

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  72. beb said on November 10, 2011 at 8:22 am

    I get the impression that Caliban thinks people are blaming Penn State on Catholicism. But the comparison isn’t to the religion but to the church, which has had a decades long problem of covering up child abuse by priests. The church has invested so much in training their priests that it would be costly to throw out child molester. Likewise Joe Paterno has so much invested in being the winningest coach ever that he can’t afford to get rid of assets (Sandusky) just because they’re child molesters.

    As for Baptists being bigger jerks than Catholics, I can’t reply from personal experience but one must recall that:
    1) Caliban was an outsider there. And
    2) he was Damn Yankee.

    Later:

    The Board of Trustees fired Paterno last night. Wow. Students rioted. WTF? They want a pro-child rapist as their coach? What is wrong with these people?

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  73. coozledad said on November 10, 2011 at 8:51 am

    Beb: I wonder if the teenfuckers at National Review will express outrage at the vandalism, or they’ll dismiss it as “letting off a little steam”.
    http://news.yahoo.com/penn-state-students-nuts-joe-paternos-firing-103433642.html

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  74. Julie Robinson said on November 10, 2011 at 8:54 am

    Mr. Panzini, did you read Eugene Robinson’s column from Nov. 7? http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-penn-states-scandal-where-was-the-leadership/2011/11/07/gIQAe76IxM_story.html

    In 1998, Jerry Sandusky was investigated by the Penn State Police Department and admitted his guilt. 13 years ago, nothing was done. How dare you defend these men.

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  75. Jolene said on November 10, 2011 at 9:11 am

    I just read the grand jury report, which left me thinking that, among all the self-deluding people in this sorry saga, Mrs. Sandusky must surely be at the top of the list.

    I can just barely imagine how she might have explained to herself why these assorted boys were showing up at family picnics and tailgate parties, but what did she tell herself when he left her side to spend time with the boys who staying overnight at their house? To live w/ that knowledge, all the while acting as if what was happening wasn’t happening, involves a level of lying to oneself that is almost beyond comprehension.

    To be that afraid of losing the life you have, knowing what that life is, must be a terrible, terrible thing.

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  76. mark said on November 10, 2011 at 9:38 am

    Dexter,

    I’ve been watching “Vietnam in HD” and thinking about the VN vets this week. Thank you for your service. Serious thanks.

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  77. Dexter said on November 10, 2011 at 10:44 am

    Accepted, mark…and of course a tip of my helmet to nn.c regular MichaelG, who saw more by far than I did in the RVN.

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