Heroic Hindsight

Based on the reaction of the journalists, students, townfolk and other authority figures at Penn State. I doubt that going to the cops would have ended Sandusky’s predatory ways.

It is more than likely a psychological blame deflection from Paterno and the rest of the PSU higher ups, leadership at 2nd mile whose scorn is well earned.

What the grad did was trying to “protect the integrity of the program” by trying to solve things in house by going to Paterno. First instinct of being a member of the family. Hell I’ve done that myself but not to cover up something as horrible as this.

The prevailing mentality in sport is “Team First and everything else is bullshit.” I know it well. Been immersed in it as a kid. Problem is that there is a bigger world outside sport. Bigger demons than just the opposing team and the refs.

What really bothers me is that where is the fury at that scumbag Sandusky?

It’s not about heroism. It’s about common decency.

@ManchuCandidate: Yes. This, especially at Happy Valley. It’s all about the football. Period.

@mellbell: It’s about reporting a crime. If the grad student had walked into a 7-11 and seen Sandusky shoot the clerk, would going to Coach Paterno have been OK? There is no possible ambiguity about what this guy saw. He didn’t see Sandusky hugging a little boy. He saw Sandusky fucking him in the ass.

I’ve been thinking about this and, to a certain extent, I agree that calling the police may not have been the first thing on my mind so I don’t begrudge McQuery for that. My first through tenth thoughts would have been about making the boy and myself safe. I would have taken the boy and run.

Whatever may have come after that – Manchu is probably right that allegiance to the Program would have led us down the same path- that boy would have been removed from Sandusky’s clutches. The rest of the story would have probably played out as it has, waiting until Victim 1’s kickass mom took action and refused to give up until charges were filed. But the state attorney would know Victim 2’s name.

Athletics and the drive to win, prestige, fandom, etc. has a corrupting influence on associated educational systems from the lowliest high school that gives preferential treatment to jocks to the powerhouses like Penn State. Maybe Stanford and some other places get it right, but maybe we don’t know what’s under the rock there.

Penn State and the State of Pennsylvania seem to be setting new standards for institutional corruption, however:

Past And Present Board Members Of Sandusky’s Charity Gave $201,783.64 To Gov. Corbett’s 2010 Campaign Corbett, a Republican, was AG when the allegations about Sandusky emerged.

Penn State now has PSU alum and Merck Chairman and CEO Kenneth Frazier looking into what went wrong in the Sandusky affair. Frazier more or less got Merck off the hook for endangering a lot of people with the company’s crappy Vioxx painkiller. “[T]here is a terrible irony to their choice of Ken Frazier as its leader. Frazier, after all, rose to the top by burying monumental corporate failures at Merck. Those interested in learning the full and complete truth about what happened at Penn State have the right to be concerned that the cover-up of the cover-up has begun.”

*****
In other corruption news, a federal grand jury is investigating Bill Richardson’s 2008 presidential campaign:

“But the Journal has learned that one area under scrutiny is whether money from campaign supporters was used to settle a threatened lawsuit against Richardson in the fall of 2007 by a woman who formerly worked in state government.

“If money from supporters was used in that way, the investigation would seek to determine who raised it, how it was tied to the Richardson campaign and how it was paid to the woman.

“Several people familiar with some aspects of the investigation have mentioned similarities to pending criminal charges against former presidential candidate John Edwards on allegations that his campaign supporters paid to shield the candidate from a public scandal.”

– The Richardson administration was noteworthy for the extraordinary number of very attractive young women who joined the state government workforce in those years.

*****
Also, Gary Johnson is whining about getting screwed in the debate process:

“Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican candidate for president, has tried begging, pleading and hectoring the national news networks to be included in their nationally televised presidential debates.

“On Tuesday, Johnson’s campaign took his grievance a step further as it pledged to file formal Federal Elections Commission and Federal Communications Commission complaints against CBS, the host of last weekend’s presidential debate in South Carolina.

“In a statement sent to the media on Tuesday, Ron Nielson, Johnson’s campaign manager, said GOP candidates are rising and falling in the polls based on their debate performances. He also said those performances dramatically affect their fundraising. Most networks have said their debate inclusion criteria is based on a candidate’s poll numbers and that Johnson’s, which tend to hover between 1 percent and 3 percent nationally, aren’t high enough.

@Dodgerblue: the victim that sandusky took to the alamo in san antonio has reported what happened to texas authorities. how bout if the texas rangers just show up at sandusky’s house and snatch him off to texas where justice is a little swifter and more decisive than pennsylvania?

@Dodgerblue: Exactly.

I respectfully disagree, Nojo. First off, when I drive, I do assume that all other drivers are fucking idiots. Second, I honestly don’t understand how a person doesn’t have the reflexive response that TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ describes of scooping up the kid and stopping Sandusky. Forget about calling 911, I’m just talking about stopping the rape in progress. Yes, I’m familiar with the Kitty Genovese effect, and David Brooks makes a point similar to yours, albeit he makes it much less eloquently and logically than you.

But I have been in these situations. I have twice been in situations where I saw an adult beating a kid – one a woman punching a toddler in the face, the other a man cursing and slapping a kid who was probably around 8 – and both times I wound up putting myself in between the adult and the child, so that they would have to go through me to get to their kid. This also happened once when I saw someone beating their dog. I don’t even remember consciously thinking about it, it was like something snapped in my head and a reflex kicked in, time seemed to slow down and I just got in there. (Sort of like one time when I was almost in a car accident when a pick-up truck was barreling at me the wrong way, and it felt like it was all happening in slow motion). After the fact, I was trembling and nauseous and realized that maybe that was stupid to get between the adult and the kid, and I could have really been hurt, and maybe I could have tried to verbally de-escalate the situation. But both times the kid stopped getting hit. I dunno. Not everyone is wired the same way.

@Dodgerblue: This.

@jwmcsame: So what is the story with Sandusky at the Alamo Bowl? I’ve been trying to not follow the story for the last few days for my own sanity, as it makes me stabby on about 15 different levels.

@SanFranLefty: Yup, and yup to TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ and yup to the post-adrenaline rush thinking of, “Oh shit — I could have died.” The only time I’ve been temporarily shocked into inaction is when something is happening to me. When you witness a living thing, especially a helpless one, being abused, you act.

@SanFranLefty: And if PSU gets a bowl and doesn’t decline?

@SanFranLefty: A friend of mine was out riding her bike recently, and passed a family with a small child on bikes. As she rounded a curve there was a sports car that was speeding and crossing the center line in such a way that he would very likely plough into the family. Without thinking, she steered her bike into his path, forcing him to slow down and swerve back into his own lane. Afterwards, she was stunned that she would risk her life for a stranger’s child–it was a purely instinctive act.

Nojo, I appreciate you articulating your argument. I have turned this over and over in my mind. And I have tried to accept Mike McQueary as a victim of circumstances.

The Grand Jury summation differs from what he is telling friends today This complicates things. Are prosecutors trying to cover up malfeasance of the University, police and former County DA (who by the way, disappeared in 2005)

It is apparent, at least to me, that Sandusky’s abuse was known for years and there must have been meetings and discussions amongst Paterno, the president, athletic director and university police going back to 1998 when the janitor saw Sandusky having oral sex in the shower. Remember Jerry Sandusky retired in 1999. There was a conspiracy to cover up.

And even more troubling: the 28 year old graduate student, Mike McQueary, who saw a 10 year old being raped in the Penn State showers becomes an assistant coach at Penn State. Quid quo pro?

I don’t believe this story, though I do believe that McQ believes it. Let me say why:

I don’t see how a grown man who seems quite tall could fuck a 10 year old from behind if both were standing. He’d be too tall. Particularly if I’m supposed to believe the sound of bodies smacking together was audible. That requires a certain, shall we say, drive, which it would be physically impossible to achieve given the set-up. I also don’t believe the boy could stand that kind of pounding. Without going into too much overshare buttsecks takes a certain amount of practice for the receiver to be comfortable enough. In the case of a grown man and a boy this would be even more true. If this boy was being raped he would surely have been calling out, struggling, trying to get away, and later he would have shown very real physical damage. If a grown man’s erect penis is inserted into the anus of a young boy it will tear him and cause bleeding which would be impossible for the kid to hide. So there’s that.

I don’t believe any physical sounds could have been heard by someone outside the shower room who was otherwise occupied. I think this is a ‘memory’ remembered after the event to explain why McQ would look into the shower room. He says that both Sandusky and the boy looked at him. Why? Weren’t they otherwise engaged? He doesn’t say he was right beside them. He also doesn’t say Sandusky pulled back, came after him, or did any of the other logical actions a man might do under such circumstances.

I think noje makes a very good point and perhaps McQ did see something but I find it almost impossible to believe that he saw what he says he saw.

I’m not saying that this didn’t go on. I’m only saying that I find this particular scene hard to believe. Of course the very idea is revolting but it seems to me that if something doesn’t make sense – the physical set-up – then it’s probably not true.

Right, getting between the little one and the harm being inflicted is the only reflex I can imagine. What’s bizarre is that this guy went to work every day in the knowledge his boss was a child rapist. Hey, coach, ass rape any good toddlers this morning?

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: I would have taken the boy and run.

@texrednface: McQueary may have thought that his career would end if he went to the cops. Instead, it ended because he didn’t.

@texrednface: What he’s now saying makes me even more skeptical.

@SanFranLefty: texas can charge mcqueary if he saw sandusky sandusking the little boy, but only with a misdemeanor. one would think that the threat of a charge might induce mcqueary to rat on sandusky big time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydl5cQKzD-U

and straight from san antone:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/news_columnists/o_ricardo_pimentel/article/Silence-inaction-Abuse-s-faithful-allies-2271405.php

Pennsylvania authorities recently arrested the coach on charges of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period, at least half of them after that Pennsylvania DA took a pass on prosecuting.

No prosecution. More abuse alleged. Finally, an arrest and, if the charges are true, a much belated reckoning ahead for Sandusky and the two college officials who had knowledge of a 2002 incident and failed to report it to authorities. They, too, have been charged in the case.

Compare and contrast. In Bexar County, District Attorney Susan Reed and San Antonio Police Chief William McManus have talked about building a criminal case against Sandusky. This from an incident said to have occurred in San Antonio while Sandusky was here for the 1999 Alamo Bowl with one of his alleged victims.

Within a week of hearing of just the possibility of an incident, Texas authorities contemplate action. So Sandusky could face a Texas reckoning, though if Pennsylvania seems to be on top of its game, this might be unnecessary. And, at the moment, I’m not trusting Pennsylvania much.

That Pennsylvania DA who declined to prosecute Sandusky back in 1998 has gone missing and been declared dead. So he can’t tell us why he didn’t act on what would seem like a straightforward case to us non-Nittany-Lion-loving laymen.

@Benedick: I wondered about the size difference issue. In terms of physical damage to the boy, if he saw a doctor the doctor should have reported it to the police. In California, anyway.

@texrednface: Bear in mind that I’m focusing on the actual moment, and my own uncertainty at how confidently I’d handle something like that. (“Why didn’t he immediately do this or that?”) As time passes — a day, a week — I’d like to think I would have come to my senses, after the initial shock.

So I’m not going to call McQueary a victim of circumstances. My empathy here has a very short window.

@SanFranLefty: when I drive, I do assume that all other drivers are fucking idiots.

As do I — especially when driving Washington Street every day, which I compare to a high-school driving-class movie. That was a contrasting example — one where you expect shit to happen.

However…

I have twice been in situations where I saw an adult beating a kid

I haven’t. I can’t think of anything even remotely comparable in my life. And I’m not going to give myself the benefit of the doubt, as self-flattering as it would be. I simply don’t know how I would respond.

And, as they say, I hope I never have an opportunity to find out.

@Dodgerblue: He took the kid to a team trainer who said to rub some dirt on it and walk it off.

ADD: So what if the coverup extends to the medical community.? At this point, I would not be surprised.

This Penn State stuff is beginning to move too fast to follow: Judge Who Freed Sandusky On Unsecured Bail Raised Campaign Funds From Board Members Of Sandusky’s Charity

“Wow. Leslie Dutchtot, the judge who let Jerry Sandusky out of jail on $100,000 bail, took money from several people involved with The Second Mile when she was running for district judge a few years ago.

“The news that Dutchtot benefited from contributions from a campaign fundraiser hosted by Bob Poole, the chairperson of The Second Mile, was revealed yesterday by Pennsylvania Representative Mike Vereb, who posted two of Dutchtot’s campaign finance reports from May and June of 2007. ”

Judge Dutchtot is . . . a Republican.

@Benedick: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

While the mechanics might not make sense, remember that these were at-risk kids in Sandusky’s program. Who’s to say that they hadn’t learned to suffer in silence, learned to shut up and take the abuse so that it will hopefully end sooner, before, during, and after being in Sandusky’s Abuse Camp?

Sounds are magnified in an open tiled shower, and even more so when people are wet. I mean, if we *are* going to go through the mechanics of raping children, these are plausible explanations for the sounds and the lack of screaming, squirming, and crying, and there’s the likely possibility that this kid had been torn up many times before. One of my brothers was nearing 6′ tall when he was ten. Just sayin’.

ADD: According to the GJ transcript, Victim 2’s age was “estimated to be ten years old… .” Could have been older; could have been younger. I wouldn’t focus too much on the guess at Victim 2’s age when trying to assess whether McQueary’s testimony is credible.

@redmanlaw: Did we clear up that it was Paterno who “sold” the house to the missus for a buck last summer?

@jwmcsame: Oh shit. I really hate to write this, but PA Gov. Corbett seemed to be, er, running with the ball when he was PA’s AG. That DA will lose their head. The link isn’t loading for me, but was this pre-’09, and was the DA in Centre County?

@nojo: NYT says it was Joe. I got it wrong yesterday. This could be an estate planning trick, unrelated to Joe knowing that indictments were coming. He’s 84, right?

@Dodgerblue: They knew indictments were coming and that they were long overdue. The grand jury was convened in 2009. I doubt JoPa and all the rest didn’t know.

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: Credit where it’s due.

@Dodgerblue: Doesn’t it take two years before that becomes final?

@Benedick: I don’t know. PA is a non-community property state so I don’t even want to guess.

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: I’m not saying that bad things didn’t happen I only say I don’t believe that this particular thing happened. I take your point that the child could well have been scared into silence but I still say that that particular coupling in that particular place was well-nigh impossible. If he’d picked the kid up it could be possible though unlikely. But as McQ describes the scene I don’t think it makes sense. It makes even less sense now that he claims he did intervene.

No doubt something entirely wrong was taking place – what kind of man would shower with a 10 year old? – but this scenario sounds to me like a straight guy imagining gay sex.

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: sandusky was protected by the guv, the psu prez, the a.d., campus cops, the happy valley p.d., and joepa. only thing he lacked was the philadephia cops busting the victims and their mother’s heads wide open for speaking up. i’ve been telling any who will listen that it’s gonna take the texas rangers (law, not baseball) dragging his ass off to the john connally unit for any sense of justice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Connally_Unit

@Benedick: that’s sandusky’s defense right there. he’ll say it just couldn’t happen that way, they’re all making this up. and if i did it, i would have done it a different way. like o.j.

you might get called as an expert witness. make sure you get paid. up front.

@Benedick: He was recalling the scene seven years after the fact; human memory, as was recently demonstrated to great effect, is not perfect.

I can’t imagine my first response not being to immediately call the police.

This kind of thing is far too common in children’s organized sports.

@mellbell: That’s exactly my point. I don’t think he’s lying so much as his memory of the real events has turned into a manufactured memory. He’s filled in gaps with what could have been and imagined it wrong.

I keep remembering that the only Catholic priest who has actually gone to jail (this was true a few years ago, things may have changed) was clearly not guilty of the charges. In fact he seemed to be a pretty good guy who made it his mission to help teenage runaways. That he allowed himself to get involved with some of them was not good but he was obviously not guilty of the charge for which he was convicted which was obtained via ‘recovered memory’ which is always bullshit.

@jwmcsame: I still say I see no way it’s physically possible. I could of course be wrong. But it sounds like they have plenty of other evidence.

And then there’s this. But if we’ve learned one thing it’s that Sport is Evil.

@Benedick: You’re not referring to Porter, are you?

@Benedick: I actually wrote my undergraduate thesis on memory reconstruction (I know!) based on eye-witness testimony research conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus at the University of Washington, and you’re right. Memories are quite malleable and open to suggestion, misinformation, false-memory implantation under duress from an authority figure, and our own after-the-fact rationalizations.

@mellbell: Genius. Spot on, baby.

@Benedick: Really, the only good thing about it is the sport-themed porn. Though now I can’t watch any of my locker room/coach stuff without being grossed out.

@karen marie has her eyes tight shut: A lawyer friend of mine here in So Cal went after a little league organization after one of the coaches had kids sleep over at his house, molested them etc. The league’s defense: the guy was a volunteer, not an employee. The judge was not impressed. Huge settlement followed from insurance carrier..

A few things to keep in mind:

Yes, eyewitness testimony is quite unreliable. That said, this is the grand jury report and not a conviction. All this stuff will get hashed out at trial — at least that’s the hope. If Victim 2 comes forth and testifies and gives his age to those who find his age a major sticking point, then feel free to call him a liar because his first-hand testimony doesn’t fit into your conception of what’s possible and what atrocities people are capable of committing.

@karen marie has her eyes tight shut: No. Different guy. Known as the Street Priest.

@¡Andrew!: I had a very strong memory of the first boy I ever fooled around with playing the king in King Lear when I was Cordelia in long flaxen plaits. I made a joke to him about it a year or so ago and he said that he didn’t play the king and that I was a spavined twit. I had manufactured not only the memory of his performance, but interactions backstage (not sexual for a wonder given my school), and the warm runny nostalgia it all gave me.

This is going to get very ugly very quickly.

@Benedick: What was Richard Burbage like in person, anyway? Big?

@Dodgerblue: @TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: @Benedick: A thing about McQueary, the graduate assistant. He wasn’t a reed-thin, bespectacled dude with a pipe and a syllabus – he was a big, former college QB who once broke up a knife fight between other players.

Yes, that means there were knife fights between players at PSU….

@jwmsame: @JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: sandusky was protected by the guv, the psu prez, the a.d., campus cops, the happy valley p.d., and joepa. only thing he lacked was the philadephia cops busting the victims and their mother’s heads wide open for speaking up. i’ve been telling any who will listen that it’s gonna take the texas rangers (law, not baseball) dragging his ass off to the john connally unit for any sense of justice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Connally_Unit

Can’t click through to your link, but yes to all. Are we talking Rendell, Casey, Thornburg? Not that it really matters.

Here’s what matters in Happy Valley:

Football
Booze
Sex
Rape
Coverups
Did I mention rape? And football?

A thing about McQueary, the graduate assistant. He wasn’t a reed-thin, bespectacled dude with a pipe and a syllabus – he was a big, former college QB who once broke up a knife fight between other players.

Yes, that means there were knife fights between players at PSU….

Do any of you remember the NJ highschool students who raped a developmentally-delayed student? Forgot the name of the book, but, yeah.

Here’s how it goes: football star in highschool gets free pass for rapieness. Gets free pass in college, gets free pass if he makes it to NFL, and if he doesn’t make it to the NFL, he’s been acculturated to do as he pleases and never be held accountable. Boosters, hookers, payment under the table, corruption. And I LOVE FOOTBALL. But we let these kids get away with so much as long as they’re winning. It’s all about the “W” column, payment to the coaches, endorsements for the school — I mean, do you really think that all the PSU alumni dollars roll in to support academics?

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That: Oh, you.

In today’s pedophilia news, an assistant coach at Syracuse is under police investigation for molesting a boy. I wonder if the news coverage of the Sandusky matter is giving kids the courage to to tell their stories.

@Dodgerblue: I hope so — it’s like when you add just enough of a solid to a solution to make it all fall out of suspension. It happened with the priests. Let it roll. And now that people are (hopefully) more aware and sensitive to the issue of child sexual abuse (esp of boys), this shit will blow up. We need a sea change. We needed one a long, long time ago.

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: New Age-y people have been saying since the mid-70s that one of the signs of the New Age would be moral challenges to existing corrupt powers structures. Let the Sun Shine In, y’all.

@redmanlaw: <3

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: Yes. Especially of boys.

That’s all I’m going to say, because I don’t want to get into another pedantic debate about shit like age of consent and boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

But for shits and giggles, here’s a quick mental exercise: substitute “McQueary walked in and saw a 10 year old [white] girl being anally raped by Sandusky” for “McQueary walked in and saw a 10 year old [black/brown] disadvantaged inner city boy being anally raped by Sandusky” (note: the racial/ethnic descriptions are somewhat extraneous given the other cues), and if you are more horrified by the former rather than the latter, ask yourself why. I’m not trying to accuse anyone of being racist or sexist, I think we all just need to step back and remind ourselves of our social conditioning and genderized and racial expectations. Why would the image of slap-slap-slapping the behind of a yellow-curly-haired girl from Bryn Mawr be any more horrifying than the slap-slap-slapping of a black-curly-haired-boy from Philly? Would McQueary have intervened in the former and not the latter? Why or why not?

Young black men and boys are the absolute last to verbalize any sort of history of abuse, because societal expectations in both mainstream and African-American communities of what it means to be a tough black man. Add the overlay of tough football players from Philly junior highs and high schools dying for a scholarship to Penn State, and we have a toxic brew of silent exploitation.

/Socratic-method law/sociology professor checking out. Love my Stinquers.

TJ/ WTF does the 60 minutes w/r/t this Dogfish IPA mean? It did fuck me up in 60 minutes, but I don’t think that’s what they’re advertising. Or maybe they are. Hell if I know.

@SanFranLefty: Have I told you lately that I love you?

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!: Love you too! Finish that fucking sweater so we can talk about hiring you for another one. And go to bed already, it’s almost 2 am on the east coast.

@SanFranLefty: Dude. I treated Marines and Sailors who were gang raped with broken fucking bottles, broom handles, the whole nine. They couldn’t report it for fear of retaliation (a legitimate fear — I mean, we all want to live right?), but we in the medical community all knew what was up and that we could do NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. And when I reported the sexual harassment and other abuse I was personally subjected to, I was the one who bore the blame. Although it sucked for me and other women, I realized how much it sucked for the guys. I’m not so sure that the rate of sexual assault of men or boys is much less than that of women/girls. Mos def culture plays a role, be it the temporary foosball or military culture or the one in which you grow up.

I’ve been beyond shocked that people in my family preyed on other family members, AND NO ONE TOOK THE KIDS SERIOUSLY when they finally found the courage to TELL SOMEONE THEY TRUSTED that this shit was happening TO THEM. Dirty laundry, such as, swept away, and people wonder why so many of us are quite fucked up.

We were abused by someone we trusted, and then when we told someone else we trusted, we were told that this shit didn’t happen, that we were liars.

Sometimes I wish there were a hell.

@SanFranLefty: Heh. Yes, Ma’am!

@JNOV: Since I’m an agnostic (related: any one see Wednesday’s South Park?) I haven’t yet given up hope that there’s a hell in the afterlife for people who hurt children and animals. Similarly, I haven’t given up hope that the karmic energy still lingering of all the awesome dogs and cats I’ve known is a force for cosmic good.
Good night!

@SanFranLefty: I hate Dr Pepper.

@SanFranLefty:
yellow curly headed girl from bryn mawr…you rang?
i don’t think it’s just you and me and Saw that gets between an abuser and a child/dog. isn’t this a natural response? if yes, then the story holds no shower water. if no, i’m getting back in bed.

no mention here of his phone interview with bob costas, who was sitting next to his lawyer! i caught it on jon…bob: have you ever sexually molested a minor? sandoucheky: hmm…did i ever sexually molest a minor?
case closed.