The first Penn State official to perish in the Sandusky child molestation cover-up is the venerable Joe Paterno, who announced this morning that he would retire at the close of this football season. It remains to be seen whether his wishes will come to pass, as there is sufficient public pressure, ginned up by the national media, who have been magnetically attracted to this story, to end Joe’s career immediately, if not sooner. The Board of Trustees is meeting again tonight to discuss that, among a myriad other issues arising out of the Sandusky affair.

Why should Joe be the first to pay the price? He was exonerated by the Attorney General’s office, who have presumably placed him on their list of witnesses for the prosecution of Sandusky. He properly reported the information given to him by McQueary to his superior. Who knows for certain that he didn’t follow up and inquire about what was going on, as so many media wonks and bloggists (including this Turkey at times) have suggested or flat-out stated?

Given that introduction, Dan Vecellio wrote a compelling article for Onward State. You owe it to yourselves to step aside from the media frenzy and think about what Vecellio has to say.

When cooler heads prevail, I, too, hope that we can have definitive information about who did exactly what to whom and when, but knowing the secret nature of the ivory tower, that might never happen.