Denial

We all have family business we'd rather not publicize. There are episodes that are embarrassing, crazy relatives we lock in the closet, matters we'd rather not discuss. One of my cousins fathered three
illegitimate children and then accidentally killed himself with a shotgun. Another cousin was arrested for stealing cats. My grandmother belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. It's natural to avoid talking about these things, and in the case of the late Joe Paterno, I understand his family's impulse to clear his name because he associated himself with a pervert, but come on: Enough is enough.

Coach Paterno's family hired a team of lawyers led by Richard Thornburgh, former Governor of Pennsylvania and former Attorney General ofthe United States under two Presidents, to prepare a report that directly rebuts the report published last July by Judge Louis Freeh that was the basis for heavy NCAA sanctions against Penn State University and Coach Paterno's subsequent termination after 46 seasons. Judge Freeh's report was exhaustive, including 430 interviews of key University personnel and the review of 3.5 million pages of documents over the course of seven months, and was damning for Penn State University and Joe Paterno personally, citing "...the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims." The report was prepared under the supervision of an experienced former investigator, criminal prosecutor and Director of the FBI, so there is no doubt as to its validity, but as far as Joe Paterno's family is concerned, the Freeh report's fatal flaw is that it concluded that Coach Paterno conspired to conceal the sick sexual appetites of his longtime assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, in order to prevent exactly the kind of disaster that has ensued. Rather than just admit their loved one's complicity in such a disgusting affair, his selfishness, his obsession with his own legacy and yes, his cowardice, the Paterno family hires Mr. Thornburgh's group of ambulance chasers to print up something that exonerates the coach, a document entirely self-serving, and ultimately worthless. For the Paterno family or Mr. Thornburgh to call the report "independent" is ludicrous.

In his heyday, Joe Paterno was a legendary coach who won two national championships and more football games than any other coach in the history of American college sports. His teams went undefeated five times, he won 24 bowl games, he coached dozens of All-Americans and NFL prospects and three members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was a member himself of the College Football Hall of Fame and his program had a reputation for excellence rarely equaled in college sports, but it was all built on a lie. At exactly the same time that Joe Paterno was preaching teamwork and discipline and integrity to his players, he was actively protecting and facilitating a child predator on his own staff, throttling investigations, intimidating witnesses, concealing Jerry Sandusky's pedophilia, doing nothing to disrupt the machine that was Penn State football. Jerry Sandusky ran the Penn State defense and defense wins games, and there was nothing more important than winning: Nothing. National attention, major bowl appearances, television contracts, sponsorships and millions upon millions of dollars were flowing into State College, Pennsylvania, and losing all that by arresting Jerry Sandusky was simply too much to bear. Game after game, year after year, decade after decade, Joe Paterno knew that his defensive coordinator was seducing, molesting, imprisoning and raping young boys and did absolutely nothing to stop it, and if that all blew up in his face, then I have no sympathy for the late coach. If he was fired, if his statue was taken down and hidden away, if his program was gutted and his university was dragged through the mud, if his reputation was ruined and he died a broken man, then Joe Paterno had nobody to blame but himself and his family should stop wasting money and paper on a worthless report. What the Paterno family misses, and the report they commissioned misses, is that Joe Paterno's reputation matters less than the safety and welfare of the innocent young boys that Jerry Sandusky brutalized for so many years, and by dwelling on the coach's tarnished record rather than the victims of Sandusky's deviant desires, Joe Paterno's family guarantees that they will never be able to move on.

Source: http://progress.psu.edu/the-freeh-report

Source: http://espn.go.com/pdf/2013/0210/espn otl FINAL KING&SPAULDING2.pdf

Larry, Moe, Curly and Chuck

On Thursday the 31st of January, former Senator Chuck Hagel, Priest-King's nominee as the next Secretary of Defense, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and fell squarely on his face. In a bumbling, inept performance, Mr. Hagel would not admit that he was wrong by opposing the successful 2007 surge in Iraq, and could not (or would not) name a single Senator who had been suborned by the "Jewish lobby" nor anything "dumb" that the Senate had undertaken at such lobby's behest. When presented with a videotaped interview that he gave to Al-Jazeera in which he agreed with a caller that Israel had committed war crimes, he denied saying any such thing, and he didn't know that Priest-King's stated policy toward Iran's nuclear weapons program was prevention, not containment, until an aide hurriedly passed him a note. It was seven-and-a-half hours of watching a man publicly wet himself and I have to admit, from a conservative's point of view, it was entertaining.

Don't get me wrong, though: the Armed Services Committee will still recommend his confirmation by the full Senate and though there are a couple of Republican Senators who have threatened to filibuster his confirmation (Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn), he will still be confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense. Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and the other members of the Democrat caucus have received their marching orders from Generalissimo Obama, the Priest-King of the People's American Collective and they will ensure that Hagel gets through, no matter how incompetent he looks, because Priest-King cares less about competence than he does about obedience. You see, Priest-King has a vision for the world and that vision includes a weakened America, an America that is just another country, not only unwilling to interfere in the affairs of other nations but unable to do so, and to carry out that vision of a weakened America, he needs people who share his opinions and who will do his bidding no matter how damaging that may be to our national interests, especially in a key position like Secretary of Defense. So where that is concerned, he needs a stooge, and he's found one in Chuck Hagel.

For twelve years in the Senate, Chuck Hagel railed about Israel's influence over American foreign policy, about the plight of the poor Palestinians who have wasted nearly 65 years trying to make Israel go away, about the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (which he approved, by the way), about the black-robed mullahs being the legitimate government of Iran, about the Defense Department's budget being so bloated and more or less about anything that came into his mind. He enjoyed shooting his mouth off and the attention that comes with being a Republican maverick but now he has to explain his opinions, and rather than stand by them with conviction - "I know what I said back then and I still hold that opinion now" - he wavered, he stumbled, he hesitated, he humiliated himself. And knowing that his Democrat supporters will confirm a boob like Chuck Hagel to dismantle the most powerful military in the world, after being so humiliated in front of the cameras, is very revealing about the Leftists who control our government. They would've preferred a smooth, nimble, articulate testimony and failing that, something like Hillary Clinton's combative, confrontational performance two weeks before, but really all they wanted was to check the block. If Chuck Hagel craps the bed and embarrasses everyone who knows him but still gets confirmed, that's all that matters.

Deconstructing the United States into some feeble, wasted hobo, a kind of huge, oafish Finland of the Western Hemisphere, is a noble enterprise for the Left. Defeating, nay, destroying the Soviet Union, blasting Moammar Qaddafi, taking Grenada back from the Communists, resisting Communist encroachment in Nicaragua, defeating Saddam Hussein not once but twice and letting the Iraqi people repay the tyrant for his crimes, defeating the Taliban and shredding Al Qaeda's leadership are all black marks on America's record as far as the Left is concerned. (Killing Osama bin Laden was okay since Priest-King ordered it, as are drone killings of reputed terrorists and the killing of reputed terrorists who are also Americans, for the same reason. The rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates was not okay because the Navy SEALS acted on their own initiative.  Priest-King has to be able to take credit, bottom line.) These were all examples of American imperialism, American arrogance, American insensitivity, American disregard for the interests of other countries like Iran, China and Russia, and they cannot be repeated. The Defense Department has to be hamstrung and Chuck Hagel is the guy willing to wield the knife, and if he looked like an absolute moron all day long on national television, then the Left will just choke that down and vote for him anyway. This is what you said you wanted, America: I hope you knew what you were doing 'cause it sure doesn't look like it.