The Nittany Turkey

Primarily about Penn State football, this is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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Reading Eagle Joins Putz Patrol

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I don’t think John Fidler of the Reading Eagle quite gets it. He’s lining up with the legions of “journalists” who are excoriating Sue Paterno for seeking the truth. He begins his article with:

I’m not sure what Sue Paterno and her family had in mind when they began their recent media blitz armed with a report by a former attorney general and governor of Pennsylvania. Resurrect infamy? Force us to recall shameful behavior by a storied college football coach? Remind us all of the culture at Penn State that, according to last year’s report commissioned by Penn State, put football before everything else, including the safety of children?

If that was their goal, then mission accomplished.

There are people who decry any mention of the Holocaust using the same type of reasoning. It is shameful behavior to be buried in the annals of history, a human anomaly that is best forgotten.

“I wonder how someone could be as tone-deaf to the absolute need to protect children as Joe Paterno and his cadre of protectors of the Penn State brand.” —John Fidler, readingeagle.com

Wrong!

We need to remember these things lest they happen again. We need to face bitter truths and learn new lessons. We need to acknowledge that this is an imperfect and often cruel world.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Most of all, we cannot permit injustice to prevail simply because it is unpleasant to reopen old wounds. Sue Paterno and family knew they would be scorned for doing just that, but they damned the torpedoes. To this turkey, it is refreshing that there are people in this world who will stand on principle and seek justice. Whenever I see it happening, I applaud it. Writers can say what they will, but they’ll stick their scrawny necks out only so far; most will not take an unpopular stand. On the other hand, the Paterno family has put their money where their mouths are.

Sure, guys like Fidler can argue that the Paternos are employing their financial reserves to drag us all through the mud and by reopening those wounds, they further sully the image of the University we love. They can play the “vvvvviccccccccctims” card with perceived impunity. They have the flawed Freeh report in their holster and they feel compelled to draw and shoot in defense of its conclusions.

These are the same guys who participated in the original media storm that fomented the great rush to judgment of the late Joe Paterno. Now, the cowards among them feel compelled to defend their original positions. They can’t be inconvenienced by something like the Paterno report or, perhaps, by the truth.

Unlike Fidler, a few brave reporters have started to rethink their stands on the Penn State issue, risking popular disapproval. They deserve to be recognized for their departure from the horde.

I agree that prolonging the Sandusky scandal is unpleasant. So is surgery. Sometimes you just have to reopen woulds to ensure that they heal.

ESPN Gives PSU a Break

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ESPN’s Ivan Maisel breaks down the Paterno family report and compares it to the Freeh report with Don Van Natta Jr. This interesting interview is in the form of a 36-minute podcast.

Van Natta said the Paterno report raised some significant questions for him. He, like most who have read the report, was particularly impressed with the information supplied by Jim Clemente. Meanwhile, Maisel conceded that we all have the benefit of hindsight, so it is hard to condemn anyone who had no idea of what was really going on at Penn State.

Second Mile is prominently mentioned by Van Natta, who remarks that they were never investigated and they got by completely unscathed.

Interestingly, Van Natta compared the Freeh report to the opening statement in a trial in the court of public opinion, whereas the Paterno report resembled a defense rebuttal. However, he says that Americans tend not to change their minds easily once they’re convinced.

Van Natta also touches on the self-contradiction by Louis Freeh about his non-interview with Joe Paterno.

Where is this thing going? Van Natta predicts the Paterno family will file a lawsuit in an attempt to overturn the sanctions. He feels that if the Free report is blown up, the sanctions should go out the window. In conclusion, he indicts the media in wanting to rush to judgment, not completely, but as an adjunct to the ever decreasing American attention span.

Sudden Impact: The Other Side of the Coin

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Sudden Impact takes a look at some negative responses to the Sollers report (Paterno family rebuttal to the Freeh report).

We here at the Turkey, being of sound mind, try to present several angles on a story. We’ve certainly devoted a fair amount of column space to the “pro” side of the Sollers report. Now, in order to be “fair and balanced” (as Fox News purports to be), we should share some of the “con” artists — I mean naysayers — we’ve dug up around the media world.

It is late and I’m sleepy, so I won’t say much about each story. If you’re a fair weather fan, you might be driven off by some of the titles alone, but if you like to get a broad perspective on such nuanced issues, you’ll be impelled to read these stories.

 

First, Forbes has one entitled “Why the Paterno Family’s Rebuttal to the Freeh Report Will Not Restore Joe Pa’s Legacy.” The following sentence extracted from it will piss lots of you off: “Mr Freeh had no prior ties to Penn State, and he had no motives to draw any specific conclusions.”  Then, in conclusion, the less than eloquent writer adds this sentence fragment: “Because common sense dictates that their father and husband, Joe Paterno, was among several individuals who could have spoken out and saved the lives of countless abused children.” The vvvvvvvvvvictims. Easy way out.

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Joe Paterno
Joe Paterno

The New York Daily News jumps on the negative bandwagon with “Critique of Freeh Report unsuccessfully tries to portray Joe Paterno as a victim, rather than an enabler of child sex offender Jerry Sandusky,” describing the Sollers report as “an eloquent and highfalutin report drafted by a venerable white shoe law firm” and dubs it the “Exoneration Report.” Later it states that the Paternos are “pulling out all the stops to restore the tarnished legacy of their patriarch,” and “[The Exoneration Report’s] authors, who strain mightily against the collective weight of the reasonable inferences to be drawn from the facts and good old-fashioned common sense, should be flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.” Oh, yeah. Then, we conclude, of course, with the vvvvvvvictimmmmmmms. “Joe Paterno was not the devil incarnate. He did much good for many people. But he also permitted a child rapist to sexually assault children on his watch.” By the way, the photo of Joe associated with the story has to be the worst ever.

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Deadspin.com plays it pretty straight with “What The Paterno Family’s Investigation Got Right And Wrong About The Freeh Report.” However, they dug up a pre-trial motion in the Gary Schultz case filed in September that says on Page 21, “Schultz testified that McQueary’s allegation was sexual in nature.” And in a table on Page 22, the Schultz Particulars say, “Admits it was sexual.” They include the document in their story and then conclude by saying that Joe didn’t do enough. They’re entitled to that opinion, which is shared by many people including me. Nevertheless, it’s worth reading the Schultz motion if you haven’t yet done so elsewhere.

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Sports Illustrated’s legal analyst Michael McCann thinks we should take both the Freeh and Paterno Reports with a grain of salt because they’re internal investigations commissioned by groups with a point to make. He believes that the commentary by Jim Clemente was effective, though. Listen to an audio interview with McCann in which he also advises Franco Harris to lay low.

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Ellen & Katy
Ellen Inspects Katy’s Water Wings

Finally, you all know that Sudden Impact likes to try to conclude with something humorous. While we were all reflecting over the Sollers report, the rest of the world was watching the Grammys. (Yeah, super-exaggeration, I know.) CBS, who provided broadcast coverage of the event, had issued an edict last week demanding “please be sure that buttocks and female breasts are adequately covered.” This is the same network whose standards and practices department had forced the Ed Sullivan Show to use camera angles that would show Elvis Presley only from the waist up as he gyrated through “Hound Dog” in 1956, but I digress. Katy Perry apparently did not get the message, because her green dress exposed some succulent boobage. When Ryan Seacrest spoke with her, somewhat flustered by the shining headlights, she claimed that she was inspired by Priscilla Presley in the ’70s, although she quickly added that she was referring to “big hair.” Later, a photographer happened to catch Ellen DeGeneris checking out the situation, patrolling for other potential dress code violations (see photo). Foiled again, CBS!