Tom Ridge would be the worst possible pick to head Penn State
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Tom Ridge would be the worst possible pick to head Penn State
Mr. Pennsylvania. A man whose name is practically synonymous with "business as usual." A political insider and deal maker, whose real talents take place behind closed doors, when he's not making sure his friends and allies get a cut. A guy who once found himself in the middle of some morally hard-to-defend activity, and looked the other way.
Such a person at the helm would be the last thing that the embattled Penn State campus needs right now after years of repeatedly earning its Ph.D. in cover-ups and obfuscations in things as small as everyday disciplinary matters and as large as -- we now know -- a once-trusted university leader sexually abusing young boys in plain sight. The next president of Penn State -- with incumbent Graham Spanier's hold on the job looking about as bright as Donovan McNabb's future in the NFL -- can't be another deal maker. He or she needs to be, pardon my language, a total ass-kicker, someone who will cast the money changers out of this former temple of college football.
Tom Ridge, the former governor of the Keystone State, was floated as a pick in news reports earlier today. He would be the worst person you could think of to clean up the mess at Penn State, and so would anyone else who fits his profile.
Ridge is the guy most recently who's been pocketing $75,000 a month to tell you that the fracking goldrush pillaging its way across rural Pennylvania is good for your environment, and pay no attention to that man lighting his tap water on fire. Then he went on Stephen Colbert to insist that he's not a lobbyist, a verbal technicality perhaps -- not unlike the verbal technicalities that the current Penn State higher-ups use to defend their unconscionable failure to act.
I write this even though I'm not a Tom Ridge hater. He's a personable enough guy, with a practical and centrist approach to things, and there's a highly admirable Horatio Alger quality to his rise from blue-collar Erie through Harvard and onto Vietnam and then the highest levels of politics.
But he's been around for a long, long time now, long enough to epitomize that lobbying-governmental complex that has enriched a small elite class and turned off the other 99 percent of us. Ever since leaving his gig at the first-ever Secretary of Homeland Security, his rush to cash inas a consultant and board member has been more than a little unseemly, and creates situations like the time he appeared on MSNBC to talk up nuclear power without disclosing he was on the payroll of nuke-heavy Exelon.
When someone reaches the highest level of their profession, there is inevitably a moral crossroads. At Penn State, that happened in 2002 when an underling to football legend Joe Paterno reported lewd sexual misconduct by Paterno's former top assistant Jerry Sandusky; Paterno barely followed the letter of the law by telling a higher-up -- and nothing more -- and those higher-ups allegedly then broke the law by doing nothing.
In 2004, homeland security chief Ridge came to the realization that higher-ups in the White House were trying to manipulate the terror threat level, presumably to boost President Bush's re-election. And Tom Ridge said nothing -- at the time. He only voiced his suspicions years later. When he was writing a book. For money.
So who should become Penn State's next president...and savior? I don't know, and the Penn State trustees would be wrong to leap quickly to any conclusion. Instead they should scour the land, because the next president should be someone from outside of Pennsylvania and its deeply rooted culture of corruption, someone who's made his or her mark as a defender of our children and not as an exploiter of them, and as someone who'll smash false idols, not shield them.
The latest word I'm hearing our of "Happy Valley" is that Ridge is probably not the guy. I hope that's right. PSU doesn't need a politiician. It doesn't need Tom Ridge.
Wow these are the worst post supporting Conservative Politics that I have ever seen. I was reading through the post and found so many Right-Wingers making WEEK comments I just had to make a general post.— KINGOFZED- Just shut up Bunch. No one cares to hear your predictable babble right now.— ant8817
Solyndra? Fast and Furious? When????????— georgel- Running a college requires a person who can strenghten the endownment, administrate and attrack students. Most colleges fail at two of the three. Maybe we might get a conservative state college.— Fisher
- I disagree that the person should come from outside of Pennsylvania. I am not a Penn State alum, but I am embarrassed as a Pennsylvanian by this scandal. Certainly, we have a number of qualified liberal and conservative candidates for this position from inside the commonwealth. Ridge is not a bad choice, although he is, of course, not perfect either. Mr. Bunch tries to draw parallels between Ridge's political dealings and the scandal at Penn State where there are no straight lines to be drawn.— weir99
- Ridge is good at implementing colorful "threat warnings"...Give us a break, Guv. Good story. NICOT PPD 81-98' ret.— NICOT
- Will I agree about Ridge and how is as corupt as every other scumbag republican out there. But read the Grand Jury report before you say Paterno did nothing and you and the rest of the sh*tbag media need to stop ASSuming things. He told had a meeting with two supervisors, one of whom was in charge of the Uni-Police aka State College Police. Spanier squashed it all along with the State college DA. They are the real culprits. He is a freaking football coach not Governor of State college. When the DA closes the case going against his detective what was he suposed to do Tweet everyone...Oh wait that didnt exist and 20/20 is great hindsight.— Atlas
- I am a conservative/republican and I agree Tom Ridge is not the man. (I voted for Ridge as governor twice.)
1. I believe he is responsible for the State Employees Pension plan for being underfunded today because of the payout increase he approved before he left office (Did he benefit tremendously from this and at the Pension funds expense?) Questional Ethics Violation #1.
2. His presence on Hershey Trust Board member before the boards possible ethics violation on how money was spent from the trust and did it violate his fiduciary responsibility? (Questional Ethics violation #2)(I am from Hershey.)
I think Tom Ridge has his own questionable tainted ethics issues and it is not good to put him as President of Penn State University. They truly need a man with greater ethical values in my opinion.— T Zman - Seriously, you have Will Bunch publicly commenting on this issue? He has no credibility. Of course he turns this horrendous tragedy into a political diatribe. Only a rotting soul would do something like that. What a waste of time to give this man space for print. He's a hack, nothing more. And he knows it.— Dialoguer
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