The truth will get you: Freeh
The truth will get you: Freeh
The long- -- and I mean loooong -- awaited Freeh report on the Penn State scandal came out this morning. I think there needs to be a new word in the English language that means "shocking yet not in any way surprising," since that's how the Freeh report felt...like so many recent news stories. Powerful people lied, misbehaved and covered things up -- largely to protect their own rear end as well as each other's rear end. Depending on how cynical you are, it was either a) worst than you expected or b) as bad as you expected.
For me, it was as bad as I expected, which is pretty bad. The critical piece, though, was this: Most of us who followed this case believe that the highest-level people at Penn State -- including coach Joe Paterno -- knew that Paterno assistant Jerry Sandusky was likely a pedophile as early as an aborted 1998 probe, or three full years before the shower-rape-sighting that's received so much attention. What else, besides the scandal, could explain how in 1999 Sandusky abruptly went from Paterno heir apparent to early retirement?
So, yeah, you'll be shocked, shocked to learn that...Paterno knew. Everybody knew:
Freeh was asked if Paterno perjured himself when he testified before the grand jury that he did not know about the 1998 shower incident involving Sandusky. [EDITOR'S NOTE: PATERNO WAS NOT SPECIFICALLY ASKED BY THE GRAND JURY IF HE KNEW ABOUT THE 1998 INCIDENT, but rather if he had heard "of any other inappropriate sexual conduct by Jerry Sandusky with young boys"].
Paterno's response to the grand jury was:
"I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no. I do not know of it. You did mention - I think you said something about a rumor. It may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody. I don't know. I don't remember, and I could not honestly say I heard a rumor."
Answering the question about whether Paterno perjured himself, Freeh said, "I'm not going to comment on whether he perjured himself or not," Freeh said. "What I will say is, as you'll see in our report, there's several emails -- contemporaneous emails -- in 1998 which we found by the way which show that he's clearly following the case. He's clearly following the 1998 investigation. The coach wants to be advised. What's going on. So the notion that there was no attention paid at the time is completely contradicted by the evidence."
More details about the 1998 emails are here. We'll never know if Paterno could have been charged with perjury for that testimony, and frankly it doesn't matter much. The court of public opinion is coming back with its verdict, and it doesn't look good.
Somewhere in Hell Paterno and Bevilaqua are played naked Twister together!— chasing history- ///largely to protect their own rear end as well as each other's rear end////
Considering the crimes being investigated involved forced sodomy of many minors, that's a pretty tasteless way to word it, Will.— General Turgidson - quite the role model that Paterno... wish he hadn't chickened out and died so he could face the music too. hopefully Spanier et al all spend some time in prison, where they can have all the sex abuse they can handle.— TheRevoltionWillNotBeTelevised
- He should have been let go by the time he was 70, no one should coach a large program at that age. His generation no's how to sweep something like this under the rug,it's been that way for years. His asst. coach tells him what he saw and a 75yr. old man at that time did not no how to handle it, and he puts it into someone elese's lap. A trust was deeply broken with people who believed in him, PSU is a school with a don't ask questions culture having kids that went there and when I questioned certain things, they made me feel like a child with their sly ansers they are all about the money. From academics to sports this is a arrogant school that lives in the past, and hopefully it will end— angrywhtguy
- Who could have predicted that a poster with the handle "angrywhtguy" wouldn't know how to spell "knows"?— Hamlet
- Who could have predicted that a poster with the handle "angrywhtguy" wouldn't know how to spell "knows"?— Hamlet
- So what about my post pointing out that Governor Corbett did a 180 on the investigation was so offensive that you nixed it? There was no offensive language, no wild accusations, not even any mispellings.— Zak44
- It still was not right that somebody tarred and feathered Joe Pa's statue last night.— orange rhino
- Andrew Sullivan
- Blinq
- Blogorrhea
- Blonde Sagacity
- Free Republic
- Instapundit
- James Taranto
- ScrappleFace
- The Corner
- Buzzmachine
- Eat the Press
- Editor and Publisher
- Media (Huffington Post)
- Media Bloodhound
- Mickey Kaus
- Pressthink
- Romenesko
- The Inksniffer
- A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- Above Average Jane
- BlankBaby
- Citizen Mom
- Keystone Blog
- Metroblogging Philadelphia
- Phawker
- Philadelphia - America's Hometown
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Philly Future
- Phillyblog
- Phillyist
- The Clog
- The Next Mayor
- Welcome to Phillyville
- Young Philly Politics
- Afro-Netizen
- All-Spin Zone
- Atrios
- Bad Attitudes
- Billmon
- Booman Tribune
- CorrenteWire
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- iFlipFlop
- Kiko's House
- MyDD
- Philly (Dragonballyee)
- Rowhouse Logic
- Slacktivist
- Suburban Guerilla
- Tattered Coat
- upyernoz
- AmericaBlog
- Andy Borowitz
- BuzzFlash
- Crooks and Liars
- Cursor
- Daily Kos
- David Sirota
- Drudge Report
- Echidne of the Snakes
- Fire Dog Lake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Hullabaloo
- Jesus' General
- Jon Swift
- Josh Marshall
- Juan Cole
- Kevin Drum
- Mad Kane
- Majikthise
- Matthew Yglesias
- Oliver Willis
- Raw Story
- Swing State Project
- Talk Left
- Taylor Marsh
- TBogg
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Think Progress
- War and Piece
- Wonkette
- A Citizen's Blog
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Beer Leaguer
- Dick Polman
- Phillies Nation
- Philling Station
- Shallow Center
- The 700 Level
- The Good Phight
