Penn State trustees, Pa. governor issue self-serving whitewash on Paterno firing.

Both Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett and the Penn State trustees issued an expected self-serving and sanctimonious report to justify the firing of Joe Paterno in which they cited a "failure of leadership".

 It is both pathetic and not unexpected, that the trustees of an institution of higher learning have demonstrated both with their actions at the time and the report issued three months after the fact, that they either don't have the capacity to logically locate the open end of a paper bag, or that they will do anything to keep from admitting their own egregious cowardice and failures.

 The report is nothing less than a joke and a cover up since not only is there not a shred of logic attached to it, but it flies in the face of their own public statements at the time as to why they fired Paterno.

 In any court room in the country any statement by any witness that is more contemporaneous to the event they are testifying about will have more weight and will be considered to be more truthful and more accurate than a statement made about the same event four months later.

 In the case of Paterno, at the press conference in which they announced Paterno's firing, they said plainly and in so many words that it was the pressure applied by the news media in making what happened at Penn State a big story and the trustees inability to deal with it, that brought them to the conclusion that the best way to put an end to the media mob focusing on Penn State was to fire Paterno.

 It was putting an end to the media glare at Penn State, a glare mostly the result of self-serving motives by the media to create a big story which the Paterno name provided, that the trustees said all agreed was in the best interests of Penn State and so, displaying the kind of cowardice and disregard for principle and truth that a university is supposed to stand for, they fired Paterno for their own self-serving reasons because they not only couldn't stand the heat they wanted to get out of the kitchen as fast as they could.

 The fact that media attention was there and relentless only because of Paterno's status and that it was the Paterno name that rung up their cash registers and brought out the vultures to feed ( had exactly the same thing occurred at a different university with a football team run by an lesser known head coach it would have been a one day story), was besides the point. The fact that the media glare  had nothing whatsoever to do with children or child abuse as subsequent events have proved,  was also besides the point. It was the media attention that they admitted at the time they couldn't handle that was the impetus behind Paterno's firing, and this report which tries to say otherwise makes both Corbett, the Pennsylvania governor, and the trustees the worst kind of cowards and political hacks. Now they are trying to revise history and cover themselves by issuing a report saying the "real" reason they fired Paterno was for "lack of leadership". It is the psychologists term "projection",  which describes behavior which is characterized by a deep denial of ones own flaws and projected onto someone else that is the hallmark of the report.

 Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett proved it himself when two days ago he issued a statement taking a pot shot at Paterno when he said that Paterno "deserved to be fired" for" not following up".

 How self serving was it? For one thing Corbett had a heads up that the report was going to be released a few days later and so wanted to get in the first shot and Corbett is also one of the trustees that voted to fire Paterno in the first place.  So the idea that he would admit he and the other trustees were anything other than sanctimonious idiots for making a knee jerk reaction unsupported by facts  is beyond the realm of possibility. The second aspect that proves Corbett's statement was self-serving, is, who asked him? Who wanted or needed him to make any statement at all at this point, four months after the fact? Doesn't he have anything else to do as governor?  But when you are worried about covering your own backside, that's what takes precedence.

 To demonstrate, again and for the last time, just how dishonest and self-serving both Corbett, the trustees and the news media were then and now,  all the criticism of Paterno was based on one idea -- that  he "didn't do enough". But no one has ever said what "enough" was. No one who has ever criticized Paterno ever said with any specificity what it was he should have done that he didn't,  or what they would have done differently and why notifying the AD at Penn State of what he was told ( not witnessed himself) within 24 hours and then notifying the person whose job title was described by a trustee as "the head of Penn State police services" wasn't enough.

 Both Corbett and the trustees in their self-serving report tried to define it by saying that "not enough" and "failure of leadership" was defined as Paterno "not following up".

 To illustrate how preposterous and self-serving this conclusion is, consider this scenario:

Paterno informs Schultz the head of Penn State police services of McQueary's allegation, arranges a meeting with McQueary to report what he saw, then Schultz passes on the information to Penn State chief of detectives. Based on McQueary's eyewitness account Sandusky is arrested. The legal system plays out in whatever way it does and Sandusky is either acquitted or convicted. Ten years later in reviewing documents related to the case both Tom Corbett and the trustees realize that Joe Paterno,after reporting what he knew to Schultz and the AD, didn't make any follow up calls to the detectives  or prosecutors to check on whether or not they are doing their jobs,  but instead went back to his own job of coaching football. They decide since Paterno didnt follow up he should be fired.

 To take Corbett and the trustees at face value, that it was "not following up" which justifed the firing, they are essentially saying Paterno had to  be fired because the AD and Schultz  didn't do their jobs. According to the trustees, supposedly it was Paterno job and "moral responsibility"  to check on both of them and possibly even the detectives to make sure they were doing their jobs.

 Based on this, Corbett and the trustees are saying that every citizen of Pennsylvania who passes on any information at all regarding a possible crime to the police has a moral responsibility "to follow up" and make calls to the police to make sure they are doing their jobs.  If Corbett actually came out and said anything like that in so many words, if he tried to apply the same standard to every citizen of Pennsylvania that he is  applying to Joe Paterno, every  every police chief in Pennsylvania and every cop would want Corbett's head on a platter.

As for the news media who created the storm for their own self -serving and journalistically dishonest reasons,  further proof of media hypocrisy regarding the entire Paterno affair was on display two weeks ago in Philadelphia when Roman Catholic Monsignor William Lynn went on trial in a landmark case as the first church administrator indicted for failing to take action and report to authorities priests he had known were sexually abusing children in Philadelphia. Lynn tried to get the charges dismissed based on evidence that he had prepared a list of pedophile priests and gave the list to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua in 1994  who ordered the list destroyed. Lynn's defense is essentially  " I did what I was told"  and that he wasn't responsible for the list being destroyed. But prosecutors said they will show that Monsignor Lynn's purpose for creating the list was only to prepare for possible civil law suits against the church, not to weed out or report the predators, and that Lynn took no action himself nor did cardinal Bevilacqua,  to stop or report the sexual abuse of children to authorities, sexual abuse that he knew was going on since 1994.

 Monsignor Lynn's trial began on  Feb 29,2012. News of the opening day of the trial and the evidence against Lynn wasn't even mentioned on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News, the same newspaper that put Joe Paterno's picture on the front page, someone who did report what he was told about possible abuse within 24 hours,with a banner headline, "Shame".  Yet a trial involving a 12 year cover up of child sexual abuse by a monsignor and cardinal of  the Roman Catholic church in Philadelphia and a failure to report the abuse to authorities for more than 12 years doesnt get a word on the front page.  So much  for the Daily News and their ideas of "moral responsibility".  What the Daily News cared about is that the name Joe Paterno sold more newspapers and attacking Paterno was "safe".

So who  really failed in their "moral responsibility" and "lack of leadership"?  Everyone who attacked Paterno, that's who. The news media, Tom Corbett,  and the Penn State trustees  who clearly lied in their report in an effort to rewrite history and get out from under the heat of Penn State students and alumi disgusted with them

 Given the recent success of exerting pressure on the sponsors of Rush Limbaugh's radio show to stop their advertising because of Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke,  people outraged by the Philadelphia Daily News, Corbett and the Penn State trustees could decide on a boycott of their own -- a boycott of advertisers of the Philadelphia Daily News until action is taken against the editors responsible for the Paterno "Shame" front page, and a boycott of donations to Penn State from outraged alumni until the trustees are replaced.   As for Tom Corbett, the best way to handle him is on election day.