Everyone knows you should hesitate before running for any political office because your entire past becomes fair game for opponents and can be used to publicly smear you. These smears might be about things which wouldn’t be flaws in any other context. I know many people complain about it, but that’s just the way politics works. Politics and reports of child abuse, apparently.
McQuery came forward to say he witnessed a now convicted child abuser molesting a child. Many people (including ESPN apparently) think it’s so important that Joe Paterno be deified that they’re willing to tear McQuery’s life apart. It’s disgusting.
The question here is about whether Paterno, on subsequently seeing Sandusky still up and about and on campus, could reasonably assume that it had been investigated and dealt with appropriately, or whether he should have appreciated on this basis that it must have been covered up.
If McQueary said he saw apparent child rape, as he later claimed, then that imposes more of a responsibility on Paterno to have realized that something was amiss. If McQueary just vaguely said he saw something that he thought was very inapropriate (as Paterno claimed), then perhaps not.
So McQueary’s credibility in his current statements about what it was that he told Paterno are important.
There is no case against Paterno. He was never indicted. There wasn’t really any serious consideration for indicting him. And he’s dead. I think it would be extremely hard to prove that he didn’t do the bare minimum that was required of him. But I don’t think its possible to say he did more than the bare minimum. Its just that some people now think he’s a dick.
You are hanging your hat on the fact that now one grand juror retroactively thinks he was not credible. One out of 46. The level of proof needed to get an indictment is only probable cause. They only have to present enough evidence and give enough testimony to get a majority to vote for the indictment. The fact that one juror now says he doubts the credibility of one witness is totally irrelevant. At trial they were able to get a unanimous verdict at a much higher level of proof.
If you want to continue to pick at what this one guy said long after his involvement was over fine. Just understand it isn’t relevant to anything.
The fact that juror number 16 or whatever is now saying this in no way abrogates anyone’s responsibility to report.
I think the most interesting thing about the article is the revelation that McQueary apparently revealed to some of his players that he had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child. I think that may explain why he didn’t jump in and stop the assault that he witnessed.
No. Just no. That’s the whole point of mandatory reporting laws. The reporter (teacher, coach, whatever) is not supposed to make a judgement call on how credible the witness or victim is. They have to report it so those with the experience and ability to act on it can make that determination. That’s why its called mandatory reporting and not only when you feel like it reporting.
You are entitled to your opinion. However, there is one person that happened to hear exactly what McQuery said who believes that Joe Paterno should have done more. That was Joe Paterno.
By “here” do you mean at post #6397? Again, no. Even fuck no. Mandated reporting is mandated because it removes the element of judgment about credibility from the evaluation. Only if the person giving testimony is such a loon, such a known liar that anything and everything they say not just can be but should be dismissed out of hand might – might – there be any scintilla of flexibility.
And if by “here” you mean “in this thread”, then you should go back and review the number of times this has already been gone over, and over, and over again. Paterno made the most minimal report he could possibly make, then conspired to find ways to let Sandusky off the hook and turn a blind eye. He knew full well there was no real investigation and Sandusky hadn’t been “dealt with appropriately” by any measure beyond protection of the reputation of the university and Paterno’s football program.
I really don’t see any value in recounting all this again. It was covered voluminously and protractedly in the thread itself. Go back and read it. Current insinuations about McQueary’s credibility are really weak sauce and not sufficient reason IMHO to resurrect this train wreck of a thread. If you want to bring it back to life, at least bring back the entertainment factor. Give us 27% crazification. And give us paper towel tubes.
You staked out your position in your very first post (#249)
and nothing since has caused you to question your conclusion. Initially you blamed “righteous indignation” and “fanatics”. And now, more than 6,000 posts later, you continue to search for some means by which to justify Paterno’s actions (or lack of same). If the best you can come up with after all this time is that one out of 46 Grand Jurors might, in hindsight, have questioned McQueary’s credibility about one or another part of his testimony… Well… I think it’s time to give it up. You’re not persuading anybody, you’re just flinging dust in the air to obscure what was quite plain to everyone. Well, everyone except you and someone else I’ll not mention.
Face it, Paterno put his football team and his carefully nurtured reputation above his concern for at least one child, and connived and contrived to minimize the incident to protect himself and his program. Although I’m sure it wasn’t Paterno’s intention, this course of action allowed a sexual predator to continue his depredations, whereas a more diligent investigation at the time could have prevented this. JoPa fucked up. And in so doing, tarnished his reputation for all time.
That’s not completely correct. When the Freeh Report was issued, it transpired that - contrary to his statements - JP apparently had some input into the management of the issue, and IMO this means he is also on the hook for more of the way it went down. I posted this at the time.
Nonetheless, I think your characterization is highly exagerated.
The cite I posted had several elements, and I said upfront that the 1 juror was not the significant part of it.
If the best you can come up with is to distort my position …
Really, there just isn’t any substance here. This long after the fact, any “new revelations” are highly questionable. Past events are always colored by the passage of time. Peoples’ memories are plastic and subject to a host of influences. We simply aren’t going to learn anything now that will change the reality. Quothe me:
As a summary of a “…time to officially Pit Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program”, I think that about covers it.
I’m bored with playing nit-picky games around and around this subject. You’re just wearing the same rut deeper and deeper. If you come up with anything of substance and moment sufficient to initiate a fresh debate, then state your premise, offer your evidence, and have at it. Preferably in a new thread without all this baggage.
I’m not really on F-P’s side of this issue but as parting shots go, that one needs work. Go away and think up something more worthy of this august forum.
