Dissenting Opinion

At least two people have already spoken out negatively regarding the report that was commissioned by the Paterno family and scheduled to be released tomorrow.  And this is without either one actually READING THE REPORT.

Are they Board of Trustee members?  (Get it, they accepted the Freeh report before it was actually completed and released, but I digress.)

No they are not.  But they are members of the "media", one representing Sporting News and the other CBS.

Steven Greenberg writes:

But the Paternos have gone on a major offensive, one that may or may not help to clear Joe's name but will — without a doubt — cause angst and discomfort for many regular folks in State College and around the country. It may freshen the pain for Sandusky's victims and their families, too.

We haven't seen the report yet, but we'll go ahead and summarize it for you anyway: Joe did nothing wrong. If there was a cover-up, he played no part in it. Joe wanted nothing more than for the full, unvarnished truth to come out about everything related to Sandusky's actions. Joe was indeed the man you once thought he was, and he deserves to be remembered as such.

Look, that's not to say there won't be important details — yes, truth — in this report. There may have been a few rushes to judgment, a few bows tied prematurely, in the Freeh Report. Hopefully, the Paternos and their investigators will enlighten us.

If you can detect room for an admission of real fallibility[in Sue Paterno's Letter] — let alone an apology — anywhere in there, please tell us. Because we can't.

And if they can't believe, can't even conceive of, what some of us believe — that, at the worst possible time, JoePa's morality went unforgivably limp? Perhaps that just makes them human.

Isn't it comforting to know that a journalist associated with a media outlet like Sporting News isn't worried about details like TRUTH.  Hell, he can't even wait for the actual report to start piling on again.  And his rebuttal helps the victims in what way?  Wouldn't truth be helpful?  Don't the victims want to know what went wrong and why their pain was not forestalled or stopped?  Since when do rushes to judgment and prematurely tied assumptions and misinformation trump actual TRUTH?

The second piece of trash comes from the fingers of Dan Bernstein, associated with CBS in Chicago.
Mr. Bernstein attempts to tackle this matter with sarcasm and humor, and misses as badly as Manti Teo missed tackles in the BCS title game.

The crimes supposedly committed by Sandusky were actually committed by conspiratorial members of the mainstream media, as part of an elaborate plan to embarrass Penn State due to “jealousy.” These media members, coincidentally, were all employed by print/electronic/digital outlets outside of Pennsylvania. They maintain that reporters, columnists, anchors and personalities were motivated thusly because the football teams of their respective almae matres were not as good as the Nittany Lions.

Joe Paterno actually died in 1983, and everything since has been an uncanny series of muscle spasms.

Oh yes, the age card is always good for a laugh, even if the guy is actually dead.  Sounds like something you'd read on a Pitt message board.  We now know why this man writes columns rather than doing stand-up comedy.

• The report cites new information — undermining the conclusions of the Freeh investigation — that was provided by a recently-contacted source: a lovely, young Stanford coed of Samoan descent who has apparently had a rough go of it lately.
• Paterno’s true win total? 9,546.

Real funny stuff right there.  Ties in that whole Manti Teo thing.  And it's Mr. Bowden who is counting high school wins, junior college wins and anything remotely connected to football as a win in his career total--not Joe Paterno.  And Sue Paterno even went out of her way to say that this fight isn't about the wins, but hey, if you can get a cheap laugh out of that, I guess it's worth a shot.  Much better than these efforts:

• Paterno, a devout Catholic, was simply emulating the behaviors of respected clergymen like Bernard Francis Law of Boston, Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, and longtime Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger.
• The Paternos’ independent report also claims that victims 2 , 4, 7 and 10 were really, really cute, you have to admit. C’mon. Especially 4.

Mr Bernstein?  How would you feel if victim #4 read that?  Or any of them for that matter?  For someone who is willing to throw due process under the bus in the name of protecting innocent children, you seem to have a blatant disregard for the emotional condition of those you supposedly champion.  Just so you can get a laugh?  Oh, you were trying to make a point?  I totally missed that, but perhaps it's because your sarcasm isn't as sharp as you think it is.

I wonder how this writer would feel if his own father or a good friend was accused of playing a role in some heinous crime, for which he was actually innocent.  Would he still have written this drivel?

His righteous indignation has been on display since this whole thing exploded.  He was aghast at the Rally for the current Penn State team.  In that same article he claimed Lubrano won his spot on the BOT by promising to post-humously rehire Joe Paterno.  In another gem, he claims that Franco Harris's support of Paterno can be "chalked up to football-related deterioration, and his brain will be in a Boston University bell-jar sooner rather than later." 

I guess when you consider the source . . .

We'll see who has the last laugh.