The Tide Begins to Turn on the Sandusky Scandal
With the release, yesterday, of the “CRITIQUE OF THE REPORT OF THE SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL,” (“SIC,” otherwise known as the Freeh Report) by the lawyers representing former Penn State President, Graham Spanier, the tide has begun to turn against Mr. Freeh’s erroneous and irresponsible allegation that Mr. Spanier, Gary Schultz, Tim Curley and Joe Paterno – “repeatedly concealed” evidence of child molestation by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Mr. Spanier also did his part to turn the tide yesterday—both in an interview that appeared in the New Yorker and in interviews by ABC News and Nightline. In the New Yorker, Spanier asserts: “The Freeh report is wrong, it’s unfair, it is deeply flawed.” During his Nightline interview, Spanier asserted: “Never in my time as President of Penn State did … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Media, Sandusky Scandal
BIG LIES in the Grand Jury and Freeh Reports, a New Poll and “Framing Paterno”
At the behest of John Ziegler, owner of the website named “Framing Paterno” (to which this writer is affiliated), a reputable polling organization, Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research (WPA Opinion Research), recently conducted a poll of one thousand Americans from across the country. It attempted to assess just how well they knew important details of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal that has rocked The Pennsylvania State University and the legacy of Joe Paterno. The results are in and the pervasive ignorance exposed by the poll is astounding. Granted, ignorance about the Sandusky scandal is small potatoes, when compared with the fact that, in March 2003 (the month when the U.S. invaded Iraq), 51 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Bush Administration, Current Events, Media, Sandusky Scandal, Uncategorized
The Freeh Report, Joe Paterno and NCAA Sanctions
Part One: 1998 Given that it was the Freeh Report that provoked both the rash and unconscionably harsh sanctions imposed by the NCAA upon Penn State and the cowardly willingness of the Penn State President and the Board of Trustees to swallow them, I believe it’s time for somebody to conduct a thorough examination of the report, if only to assure that the report’s scathing criticism of Penn State’s response to the 1998 investigation is justified and that its evidence of a cover-up by Penn State in 2001 actually supports the report’s conclusion of a cover-up at Penn State. For, regardless of what incompetent reporters, irresponsible commentators or your uninformed friends have told you about the Sandusky Child Molestation Scandal and Penn State, all of the available evidence still indicates the Penn … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Media, Sandusky Scandal
The Freeh Report and Joe Paterno
Part One: The Philadelphia Inquirer Mangles the Flawed Freeh Report What do you do when reporters from a major metropolitan daily newspaper—in this case, The Philadelphia Inquirer—demonstrate that they are completely incapable of reading a published report—in this case The Freeh Report—and providing their readers with a coherent summary of its contents? What do you do when the egregious misreading of that report by these reporters presents its readers a very false picture of how officials at Penn State handled Mike McQueary’s allegations of child molestation by Jerry Sandusky in February 2001? Perhaps you would recommend that the Philadelphia Inquirer receive the “death penalty” and not be permitted to publish its sludge for a full year! Readers of my website might recall that, on 9 February 2012, I wrote … Read entire article »
Filed under: Current Events, Media, Sandusky Scandal
Journalistic Weeds Blighting America’s Political Landscape
A few days ago I wrote an article (“Certain Americans“) about the intellectual wasteland inhabited by “certain Americans,” which facilitated the foisting of George W. Bush’s benighted presidency upon decent and thoughtful Americans, as well as upon the thousands of American soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians, who now are dead as a consequence. Unfortunately, that unimproved wasteland also provides fertile soil for the sprouting of the many journalistic weeds now blighting America’s political landscape. Simply consider the “journalism” of “crabgrass” Bill O’Reilly, “pigweed” Rush Limbaugh, “ragweed” Sean Hannity, “quackgrass” William Kristol and “creeping jenny” Ann Coulter. (For a hint of the sins of such weeds, see http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/watercarriers.html ) Thanks to an insight provided by Jay Diamond, who recently excoriated … Read entire article »
George Kennan vs. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Kristol, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Coulter
George Kennan’s 15 May 1953 speech at the University of Notre Dame was delivered at a time, when the right-wing anti-communist hysteria, inflamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was at its peak. Yet, it courageously exposed the demagogic McCarthyites for the ignorant, self-righteous, fear-mongering extremists they were. Thus, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that John Lukacs appended the speech to his new book about George Kennan, because it has much to teach us about courage during the current campaign of fear orchestrated by today’s American equally self-righteous right-wing extremists. Kennan excoriated McCarthyism’s “alarmed and exercized anti-communism,” as “an anti-communism of a quite special variety, bearing an air of excited discovery and proprietorship, as though no one had ever known … Read entire article »
Filed under: American History, Bush Administration, Media
Stinky Inky, Part V: Dinesh D’Souza and the Smatterers at the Philadelphia Inquirer
This is how it works: The increasingly decadent and profit-driven book publishing business, which is “more concerned with the sensational than the sensible” publishes Dinesh D’Souza’s new book. (Quote is from Alan Wolfe’s review in the January 21, 2007, New York Times Book Review.) The book provides conclusive evidence, not only that D’Souza is an ignoramus — although earlier evidence was already quite persuasive – but also that the Hoover Institution hires hacks, provided they are conservative extremists. Yet, notwithstanding numerous scathing reviews – for example, Professor Wolfe writes that D’Souza is “a childish thinker and writer tackling subjects about which he knows little to make arguments that reek of political extremism. His book is a national disgrace.” … Read entire article »
The Nation: Editor's Picks
- Why Aiyana Jones Matters June 19, 2013 Mychal Denzel Smith
- The Peeping Press: Understanding the Male Media Gaze June 19, 2013 Jessica Valenti
- Game Six: The Sequel June 19, 2013 Dave Zirin