I took a Paterno-related jab at Starving Artist just a few days ago, but to be honest, i’m sort of amazed that it took the Paterno thread for so many people to give up on him.
Starving Artist has been stinking up this place with loathsome political opinions and, more importantly, with fundamentally flawed and dishonest arguments, for years now. The Paterno thread was merely another example of the same stupidity, ignorance, tendentiousness, and mendacity that have characterized the vast majority of his contributions to this message board.
I guess it’s possible he’s made some decent contributions, possibly in threads like “Vanilla or Chocolate?” or “What’s your favorite Molly Ringwald movie?” But on any topic of substance, you can assume that anything he says will have been passed through the lens of his personal prejudices and personal experience, barely even grazing the filters of historical accuracy and political honesty, and will come out the other side as a fun-house mirror distortion of reality. While many of the conservatives on this board can’t quite bring themselves to actually criticize or disown him, it’s rare that one of them, especially among the thoughtful, will support him or rely on him in a debate. That should tell you something.
I don’t think the Paterno thread should define Starving Artist around here. That lets him off too easy, because focusing on that one thread implies that it’s some sort of aberration, when it’s simply another tree in a very large forest.