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RUSH: New York Times, headline: “Penn State Said to be Planning Paterno\u2019s Exit Amid Scandal.” Now, there are some crazy things about this story involving Jerry Sandusky abusing young boys at Penn State. Paterno didn\u2019t. The media, sports media\u2019s been after Paterno to quit, resign for ten years. “He\u2019s too old. Life has passed him by. Football has passed him by; he\u2019s a fuddy-duddy. He\u2019s 84 years old, got no business coaching football, got no business being around college-age football players. You can\u2019t relate to \u2019em. What the hell does he know about them. He\u2019s gotta get out!” This has been a refrain in the sports media for years, but Paterno hangs in there. Joe Paterno, up until now, has had something that very few people in this country die with — and that\u2019s an impeccable reputation.<\/p>\n
“Paterno was to have held a news conference Tuesday but the university canceled it less than an hour before it was scheduled to start. At age 84 and with 46 seasons as the Penn State head coach behind him, Paterno\u2019s extraordinary run of success — one that produced tens of millions of dollars for the school and two national championships, and that established him as one of the nation\u2019s most revered leaders, will end with a stunning and humiliating final chapter,” as the media smiles. “Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator under Paterno, has been charged with sexually abusing eight boys across a 15-year period, and Paterno has been widely criticized for failing to involve the police when he learned of an allegation of one assault of a young boy in 2002.<\/p>\n
“Additionally, two top university officials — Gary Schultz, the senior vice president for finance and business, and Tim Curley, the athletic director — were charged with perjury and failure to report to authorities what they knew of the allegations, as required by state law. Since Sandusky\u2019s arrest Saturday, Penn State — notably its president, Graham Spanier, and Paterno — have come under withering criticism for a failure to act adequately after learning, at different points over the years, that Sandusky might have been abusing children. Newspapers have called for their resignations; prosecutors have suggested their inaction led to more children being harmed by Sandusky; and students and faculty at the university have expressed a mix of disgust and confusion, and a hope that much of what prosecutors have charged is not true.<\/p>\n
“On Monday,” yesterday, “law enforcement officials said that Paterno had met his legal obligation in alerting his superiors at the university when he learned of the 2002 allegation against Sandusky. But they suggested he might well have failed a moral test for what to do when confronted with such a disturbing allegation involving a child not even in his teens. No one at the university alerted the police or pursued the matter to determine the well-being of the child involved. The identity of that child remains unknown, according to the Attorney General” of Pennsylvania. “Paterno has not been charged in the matter, but his failure to report to authorities what he knew about the 2002 incident, in which Sandusky allegedly sexually assaulted a young boy at Penn State\u2019s football complex, has become a flashpoint, stirring anger among the board members and an outpouring of public criticism about his handling of the matter.”<\/p>\n
Now, what happened here, a graduate assistant (or assistant coach, student, whatever) witnessed Sandusky abusing, having sex with a young kid (we don\u2019t know how old) in the Penn State locker room. He went and told his dad. His dad then told Paterno, then Paterno told authorities at the university, which is what he was supposed to do. The problem here is that the witness didn\u2019t stop it. Everybody is up in arms here over the witness didn\u2019t do anything to stop it in the process. He saw it, ran out of there, and started telling his dad; his dad said, “Okay, we\u2019re gonna tell Paterno,” but nobody stopped Sandusky when he was in the act. That\u2019s got people a little worried, and then that happened some time ago. Sandusky was still allowed to use the football facilities after that when everybody knew.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the problem. Those two events: That Sandusky wasn\u2019t stopped, and that people knew about it and then Sandusky years later was still in the football facilities while everybody knew what he was doing, that\u2019s… I don\u2019t know if you can put things in an order of “worst” here, but that certainly, if you did, would be at or near the top. Now, Paterno didn\u2019t act. What they\u2019re saying is Paterno should have had banished Sandusky. He should have not allowed him anywhere near the place after learning what he learned, should have gone to the cops, should have turned Sandusky in, should have shot him, something, whatever.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been gunning for Joe Paterno for years — assorted alumnae, media, what have you — simply because of his age. So it looks like Joe Paterno who up until all of this had just an impeccable reputation, is (if this New York Times story is correct) gonna be forced out of Penn State with none of that intact which, sad to say — there are several in our culture — several people love to just tear people down, no matter what. They just love to destroy \u2019em. It\u2019s a fact of life in our culture because impeccably reputed people make everybody else look bad. So if we can make everybody look like a reprobate, it\u2019s not so bad to be a reprobate. If everybody looks like a scumbag then it\u2019s not so bad to be a scumbag.<\/p>\n
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“They were scumbags like we all are and they just phony reputations, PR campaign made \u2019em look bigger and better but they\u2019re not. Nope. The model now? People like Bill Clinton. That\u2019s the hero, that\u2019s the star, that\u2019s the guy we all want to end up being like.” That\u2019s who the Democrat Party hoists up — and if they don\u2019t hoist \u2019em up, they do their best to protect \u2019em, as in John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, you know the drill. See, the left wants no standards for themselves. They don\u2019t want to be judged, because they know full well they\u2019ll fail. They know full well that they will come up short if measured against standards, and so there can\u2019t be any standards. It\u2019s just like people in poverty. The left… You\u2019re seeing it now. They don\u2019t want to elevate people. They\u2019re not interested in taking the 99% and getting them into the 1%.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not interested in taking the bottom 40% and putting them in the top 50%. Nope! They want to go up to the top, take everybody up there, and bring \u2019em down; cut everybody down to size — and they\u2019re doing it to the country. And that\u2019s what Obama\u2019s mission is, is to take the country down a peg. “There\u2019s no American exceptionalism; there never was! That was all a lie. That was all phony, plastic PR. This country\u2019s always been mean-spirited, extremist, bigoted, racist, and sexist — and that\u2019s the truth of this country, and we\u2019re gonna make sure everybody understands that! Not only in this country, but around the world, too.” That\u2019s Obama\u2019s mission. So we have a culture — we have people, we have a nation, we have institutions — in decline being managed as such purposefully.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here\u2019s Lawrence in Philadelphia. I\u2019m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Rush!<\/p>\n
RUSH: Hey!<\/p>\n
CALLER: Great to talk to you. Thank you. First-time caller. I\u2019ve been trying to get through for a while. But listen, I agree with like 90% of what you say, but I gotta disagree with you on the Penn State thing.<\/p>\n
RUSH: What? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Disagree with what on the Penn State thing?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, you\u2019re saying that we\u2019re trying to take down, or the media is trying to take down Paterno but he is like the most recognized name at Penn State and he knew about this for years and this guy is a monster this Sandusky and what he did to these boys.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah. It\u2019s a problem. The whole thing is despicable and a rotten shame for everybody involved, but my point is not that Paterno should be insulated from it. I just think it\u2019s just a shame because people have been gunning for him.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I just think that… You know, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re gunning for him. I think that he has responsibility in turning his back on what happened, and letting this thing go on for a couple years. I told Snerdley there, I said, “Everybody in that inner circle there had to know that that guy was a creep.”<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, they did. They did, and he kept coming back to the facility and the original witness who saw this one event taking place didn\u2019t do anything to stop it, didn\u2019t try to find out who the kid who was being abused was. For a while there was no attempt to stop Sandusky, that\u2019s true — and he had this charity for young boys which didn\u2019t arouse anybody\u2019s attention, either.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Right. I just think the whole thing is so sick. I was reading the paper, it\u2019s in our local papers, and I\u2019m just disgusted by the whole thing. I think it\u2019s like a prime example of the elites covering their butts and getting away with stuff that the rest of us wouldn\u2019t. I mean, it\u2019s stick what this guy did, and then to give him the slip or let him slide and keep it in house? It\u2019s just disgusting.<\/p>\n
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CALLER: What\u2019s that?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Nobody has the guts to actually give the explanation for what was going on and why there was trepidation in reporting it, and that\u2019s all I\u2019ll say. If you can figure it out on your own, fine and dandy. Lawrence, thanks for the call. I appreciate it. None of that is meant to excuse anybody. No, no, no, no. Don\u2019t misunderstand. I\u2019ve not concocting an excuse. Phillip in New York, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah, hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call, buddy.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You bet, buddy.<\/p>\n
CALLER: If what they\u2019re saying is true, and Paterno knew that this guy was doing that — even though he reported it to the highest people at the university — he would see that there was no investigation being done after he reported it; and he should have — if he knew it was going on, he should have — reported it to the police, and he did not. If that is true —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Wait. Can I ask a question?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I\u2019ve read that in every story that it was up to Paterno to report it to the police. Why? I\u2019m not trying to concoct an excuse for him. That\u2019s something I honestly don\u2019t understand. He reported it to his officials… (interruption) Oh, it\u2019s state law that somebody at the university\u2019s gotta report it? Okay. Okay. If you\u2019re in a school system and you see this, you\u2019ve gotta report it to law enforcement, not just…? Oh, okay. All right. Not being an employee of a government-run unit I didn\u2019t know what the law was.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, even just out-and-out personal, for your own peace of mind. What this man did was horrible.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n