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Why Ken Matthews’ show was terminated at WHP580 AM

In 2013 or 2014, radio personality Ken Matthews followed the late and great gravelly voiced, cowboy hat wearing, hard charging, chiseled face long time prime time radio host Bob Durgin here on Harrisburg, PA’s WHP580. While Bob frequently talked about the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s most recent ridiculous and pointless regulation that had squashed Mabel’s farm stand, or that had SWAT raided some little girl’s lemonade stand, which, believe me, all resonated here in Central PA, Ken Matthews brought a broader and more general American government policy discussion.

Like most conservative talk show hosts today, Matthews hit the daily or weekly zeitgeist of subjects and issues, from the global warming/ global cooling/ global whatever hoax to regional politics to the 2020 stolen election. But when he first arrived, it was clear that Matthews was working hard to impress the radio station engineers. And it was clear that they were making him work at it, because his first few months on air were a little tense. Listeners could feel that tension, and it seemed that Matthews might just be a fly-by.

Eventually, Matthews and WHP580 engineer Art Selby hit their rhythm, and the show took off. When he first arrived in town, I did some amateur on-the-ground citizen reporting “live from the Perry County court house!” for Ken. I frequently called in to the show or sent an email, either of which Ken would almost always take on air. After all, I have been involved in politics and culture battles for a long time, and I try to offer substance. And for a long time it felt like I, too, had a quiet, good rhythm with Ken Matthews.

But then somewhere around 2019 Ken changed. He became more popular, more self-aware, more self-important. He did some radio shows for Rush Limbaugh, and suddenly Ken’s on- air voice changed. His personality changed. His patience with callers changed. His voice was clipped. He sounded snooty. It was obvious that Ken Matthews was awfully proud of Ken Matthews, and that he looked down on just about everyone. Because he was important, ya know.

My last interaction with Ken was mid-January, 2021, I think when his radio show became nationally syndicated and Ken was feeling especially very important. While I was on a long drive returning a car trailer to a garage in rural Centre County from Harrisburg, a very low, unimportant-person kind of thing to do…I suppose. Below are the screen shots from our emails that immediately followed my being on hold for half of Ken’s entire three hour show. What was so important at my end? Well, I wanted to share with Ken and his listeners my own law-abiding experience in Washington, DC, on January 6th. It was exactly the kind of call-in Ken used to take, about a subject he was covering.

I actually ended up staying on hold just because I was fascinated at the technology at play. My truck’s own AM radio had long since lost contact with WHP580, but here I was clearly connected via a tenuous but unbroken cell phone call. Driving across the lightless, deep darkness that is rural Central PA in winter time, hearing WHP580’s on-hold show through my bluetooth connection made me feel a bit like an astronaut floating way out in space, far from Earth, yet with a very slight connection to the Houston control room back home. It was both fascinating and a little assuring.

As you can see from the emails below, Ken’s snarky, disrespectful responses showed he relished keeping me on hold. He was enjoying being mean. I don’t know why he didn’t just get on the phone with me during a radio break and say that he didn’t want to talk about January 6th, or why he didn’t simply ask call screener Art Selby to come back on and tell me they were not going to take it (Art had told me they would take the call) (And why not just send a normal email response that says “I am sorry you think that”). Instead, Ken enjoyed being a jerk, even and especially when someone he knew was a loyal follower told him he was. Ken’s sense of personal power and self importance took over his brain. Making people feel badly made Ken feel good.

And that is exactly what got Ken’s nationwide radio show canned two weeks ago. Ken Matthews’ ever increasing on-air arrogance eventually overrode his professionalism so egregiously that he was terminated on the spot. His behavior has been called a “slip-up,” a hot mic moment etc. But the actual truth is Ken Matthews had long since cared little about what other people thought or think, because he had become way too important.

While I felt stung that January night on my way up north, my desire for revenge against Ken for treating me like a jerk was gone a few hours later, by the time I got back to Harrisburg late that night. Afterwards, I never called or wrote in to the radio show, and only quite infrequently listened to it. Because let’s face it, Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and a bunch of other radio hosts all do pretty much the same format and content. And listeners can hear pretty much the same thing, without having to listen to Ken Matthews’ self-important, arrogant voice grating on your ears.

It had been my long time loyalty to local station WHP580, and the occasional local story flavor, that had kept me listening to Ken Matthews for several years, during his transition to “stardom” and then after he had become an all-out on-air jerk. All that shred of loyalty ended with the email exchange below in January 2021.

So I am not happy that Ken Matthews got his come-uppance. But boy, did he need it. And he earned it. Hopefully he learns from this experience, but it is doubtful he will.

 

 

Mueller Report shows Trump colluded

No question about it, the Mueller Report issued yesterday shows without any question that President Trump colluded all right…with Mueller and a totally corrupt political establishment. Trump’s willingness to work with these evil people and play by their evil rules gave them credibility they did not deserve. And I am upset about this.

From the every beginning of this baseless Grand Inquisition-style witch hunt, Trump

  • gave the Mueller hit team –staffed completely with Clinton Campaigners– every document they sought
  • allowed White House staff to testify without immunity and without parameters
  • did not invoke Executive Privilege
  • did not fire Mueller, or Rod Rosenstein

At the very end of this two-year fiasco that cost $25 million taxpayer dollars, tore apart America, and slandered and bankrupted innocent people, Mueller’s political report says they could find zero evidence of collusion with Russia or of “obstruction of justice.” That is, no crime. And although the Mueller hit team was made of partisan lawyers who still know better, in terms of what the law requires, they still looked at creating fake “obstruction” charges, even though there was no crime that anyone was trying to cover up through obstruction.

Like many Americans, I am upset by all this and what it means.

I am upset that Trump was such a good guy, that he put up with this political Grand Inquisition hit squad to the very end, that he did not simply fire everyone involved in the very beginning and start his presidential term with a clean slate, like every president before him has done.

I am upset that Trump was naive to think that if he played by the rules, even the crooked rules that Mueller went by, and did what was right, he would be treated fairly by what is obviously a partisan effort to damage his reputation and undermine his ability to govern.

I am upset that Trump has not played hard ball with these destroyers of American government and cultural fabric. The fake collusion allegation in the first place, and the illegally funded and so obviously phony Steele “pee dossier,” should have been dispensed with on Day Two of the Trump Administration.

I am upset that Trump has not held his FBI director Wray to a high standard, and has instead allowed Wray to simply coast along, ignoring the obvious criminality of Hillary Clinton, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Bruce Ohr, Peter Stzrok, Brennan, Clapper, and others who used their official government positions for aggressively partisan political purposes. Every one of these corrupt criminals must be investigated and prosecuted and held accountable for committing the biggest political scandal in American history.

Additionally, the American media establishment must be held concretely accountable for their constant daily drumbeat about the wild speculation that was the entire Mueller effort, as though that speculation and those rumors were worthy of being real journalism. Somehow Americans must directly confront individual fake journalists who prostitute the First Amendment for their partisan purposes, and the owners of FaceBook, Twitter, Google, etc. Shouldn’t we all be protesting at their homes? Confronting them when they are out to dinner at a restaurant? Certainly we should be protesting at their businesses. Bring some rotten eggs, make it a substantive protest to show our dissatisfaction at being lied to by this false profession called journalism.

We must bolster the few honest media outlets that exist, like Breitbart, One America News, and let Fox News know that its precipitous slide toward mainstream bullcrap partisanship will be met with an equal loss of interest by its current audience.

Finally, we must increase our number of citizen reporters, to be like Laura Loomer and Matt Christensen. What they do is actual news analysis and investigation, something the mainstream media no longer does.

The Mueller Inquisition demonstrated exactly what American taxpayers are up against: the overt double-dog-dare-ya use of democratic institutions and processes to achieve non-democratic ends, no matter how damaging to America. These are power hungry tyrannical people, and they must be confronted forcefully. Or we lose our country.

If President Trump does not do the things listed above, and more, to lead our Republic toward freedom and away from a destructive, power hungry Washington political establishment, then I and many others will be really, truly upset with him.

 

The spy on my trusty old laptop

Microsoft Windows may be the industry standard for personal computers, but with the advent of the much-hated Windows 10 operating system, the company has sought to join the data spying craze afflicting nearly every digital user.

This forced spyware is driving users batty.

Who wants to click the “YES – SPY ON ME” Windows 10 install button? Not many people. At least not people who value their privacy.

One of the reasons cell phone users are going back to flip phones is because they are tired of being spied on by the various software companies that run the “smart phones” like iPhone.

Likewise, I am joining the growing number of non-Internet-connected PC users.

A personal computer is a valuable tool, an effective tool, and between the spreadsheet and writing software on it, it does a lot for my life and business. However, once connected to the Internet, that same PC becomes a spy turned back on the connected user.  Some of the hacking involves using the PC’s camera to surreptitiously watch the user. For that reason a small piece of sticky note pad paper covers the never-used camera on my PC.

Now I have a cheap PC for Internet use, a PC with nothing on it but basic software. And then another PC with my data and files.

I found a way to stop Windows 10 from installing, and it’s actually easy to do. I highly recommend it. Reports over the past year about Windows 10 are not flattering. It is designed simply to turn your PC into a spy, to pick apart and report on not only your online habits, but your personal software uses and writing content.

And Microsoft is allowed to spy on you because you hit the YES – SPY ON ME install button.

Obama Administration bears responsibility for ambush of two cops

In Ferguson Missouri late last night, two police officers were ambushed and shot.  Both are in critical condition.

Just last week the Obama Administration’s Department of Injustice issued an outrageous, cockamamie “report” that accused the Ferguson police force of racism, despite a lack of evidence to support such a claim.  This was outgoing radical Attorney General Eric Holder’s gift to racists everywhere, who have tried to leverage every single justified police shooting into a judgment of American society at large.

Holder’s report gives succor to those who blame everyone but themselves for their problems, and it provides political cover for the Black Panther-type militarism that is sweeping large segments of America’s urban populations.  The logic of Holder’s activism is this: If the police force is so racist, then it’s no crime to go out and shoot police.

We saw the same exact dynamic and result when New York City Mayor DeBlasio accused the NYCPD of being a bunch of racists, and then two police officers were immediately ambushed and killed by a racist thug who used DeBlasio’s own words to justify his actions.

Obama has introduced radicalism into every aspect of government action.  He has filled senior government posts with people who have had a long history of militating against America as it was founded, constantly judging everyone around them, constantly harassing and accusing everyone around them, and this is just one more piece of evidence that Obama is at war with American citizens.

The blood of these two officers is on the hands of Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder.

My heart goes out to these two brave police officers; may they recover soon and completely.

409+

Last week, under pressure to perform at an adult, professional level, the senior staff at the NCAA folded right before appearing in court.

The discovery phase of a lawsuit brought against the NCAA for its disproportionate over-correction of Penn State University was about to begin, and with a handful of damning NCAA emails already in hand, the meaty part of discovery would have exposed the heavy handed NCAA overlords for what they are: Incompetent, vacuous bullies.

The fictional Louis Freeh “report” aka Hit Piece and Flaming Bomb Meant to Humble Penn State has gradually yielded to the collective bits of disbelief and basic deductive logic surrounding the Joe Paterno Assassination aka The Oxbow Incident.

Knowing now what we already knew two years ago, the NCAA storm trooper and tactical nuke assault on one of the very few pristine colleges in the nation has blown up in the NCAA’s own face.

Yes, we got our 409 wins back, but we deserve so much more.

And to have undergone so much knee-jerk reaction injustice…..Penn State deserves compensation, to be made whole, to get back what we lost, if it’s remotely possible.

I want blood.

I want guts.

I want a shred of public justice for Joe Paterno and Penn State, and for the student athletes immorally saddled with faux guilt from the sick, distant actions of a man they’d never met, let alone heard of (Jerry Sandusky).

To begin with, the Joe Paterno statue immediately goes back to its original prominent place on campus.

Then, every member of the PSU board involved in the debacle issues a personal, hand written apology. And then each resigns. I’ve got a few names to go with that demand.

Then each NCAA staff member associated with the debacle issues a hand written apology, and then resigns.

That’s what real leaders do when they fail badly.

And for those folks who really want to demonstrate their earnest attitude, I’ve got some old Japanese swords you can fall on. I’m tempted to serve as your second….to ensure a clean ending, of course.

A clean ending to a tragedy, a failure to protect little boys, a failure to act like grown men and women and apply justice carefully, a failure to protect the grown boys on the team and the many professional educators and students unfairly tarnished by the NCAA’s hasty, shoot-first-ask-questions-never attitude.

And then there’s the scholarships, the bowl money PSU lost. The opportunities unfairly crushed. How do we get all that back?

And Mr Louis Freeh, you may be ex-FBI, but I’m ex-Penn State Nittany Lion. Don’t meet me in a dark alley.

AG Kane exonerates Corbett with backhanded, ironic report

PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane “exonerated” Governor Tom Corbett with the most back-handed investigative report seen in a long time.

While acknowledging that Corbett, previously as AG himself, investigating Jerry Sandusky, did not politicize the Sandusky investigation, Kane still called Corbett’s choices in that investigation “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.”

Without question Penn Staters like me, who have followed the Sandusky debacle from beginning to end, we tend to feel like Penn State’s reputation never was considered by anyone involved.  Well, it was the paramount consideration by former PSU president Graham Spanier, at a time when the school’s reputation should not have mattered at all, and the kid victims’s interests should have been advanced immediately and at any cost.

So, too little, too late for Penn State by everyone, including a majority of the PSU trustees, Louis Freeh, and state officials everywhere.  If Corbett was guilty of failing to jump to Penn State’s defense, he was in damned good company.  Pissed at Corbett? OK, then be pissed at many of the sitting trustees.

But what irks me is to see the most politicized AG in Pennsylvania’s history use the words “inexcusable” and “inexplicable.”

Kane’s behavior in the AG office has been both of those words and much much more.

My favorite misdeed is how she refused to pursue the unethical PA Liquor Control Board members, whose financial misdeeds have been widely reported.

What has not been reported is how her family, Kane Trucking, holds PLCB contracts worth millions of dollars.  Kane’s failure to apply the law here could be due to a large financial incentive for her to not rock the PLCB gravy boat.  Is anyone investigating THAT?

No.  In fact, the establishment media has circled the wagons around Kane, with not one word yet mentioned in print about this ethical lapse of hers.  In fact, a fawning, fluffy, cheerful, supportive interview with Kane was posted by the Patriot News two weeks ago, and worse yet, by reporter Charles Thompson, a writer I have long considered one of the last real investigative reporters in Harrisburg.  Thompson made no mention of any of Kane’s lapses, or of her pending impeachment, in that unpaid advertising piece run by the Patriot News.  She was even photographed laughing away, her head held high, her artificially white teeth flashing for the camera.

While people are still asking if Kane’s report on Corbett’s role as AG has any salience for the governor’s race, what informed citizens want to know, is: Why does it appear that Kathleen Kane is protecting Kane Trucking’s PLCB contracts?  Now that is a real public policy question worth asking.

409

Legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno won 409 genuine college games.  No one can take that away from him, the players, the team staff, or the proud PSU alumni, like me.

Child molester Jerry Sandusky is a scumbag, but the football program had zero to do with his crimes.  But it was the football program the NCAA punished, disproportionately to any other football program in American history.  Using Sandusky’s association (not employment) with the PSU football program, and Louis Freeh’s horrendously unprofessional report (analyzed in detail on this site) to support its blitzkrieg assault on Penn State, the NCAA coerced PSU trustees and incompetent, spineless top PSU staff to sign the consent decree that unfairly punished the football program.

Enter the courts, where facts actually can matter.  And thus we have courts that are correctly beginning to cast doubts on the entire NCAA punishment of PSU football.  This week a court held that further inquiry is necessary to determine if the NCAA not only operated consistent with its own charter, but also consistent with the facts of the Sandusky case vis-a-vis PSU football.

Daylight is seeping in, and I do not believe that the NCAA will survive the exposure, or the application of basic logic and rules of fairness.

Joe Paterno, my hero, had 409 Wins to his credit.  Those wins remain, no matter what, but hopefully they will soon be reinstated after basic due process for ALL of the victims of Sandusky’s crimes.

The Joe Paterno Empire Strikes Back

The family of late Penn State University football coach, icon, leader, and hero Joe Paterno has struck back at the “investigative” report by former US FBI director Louis Freeh.

Releasing an analysis of Freeh’s report that is similar to one posted on this blog last year (https://joshfirst.com/blog/2012/08/16/the-sandusky-disaster-kids-lose-penn-state-loses-ncaa-loses-theres-still-no-lesson-here/), the Paternos have taken an important step in regaining lost ground.

Lost ground was rapidly created by an uncritical press, willing to serve up maudlin caricatures of what may have happened around convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky, rather than carefully scrutinize the facts and evidence we have in front of us, and then wait for the facts and evidence that we do not have but yet expect to see come out in the upcoming trials of Spanier, Curley, and Shultz.

A rush to judgment has never been so well documented, and then so well defended by a sea of armchair quarterbacks using 20/20 hindsight. Analyzing the comments on internet sites, like Forbes, ESPN, and any other reporting or opinion venue, you’d think that Joe Paterno was the real culprit, and not Sandusky.

Freeh’s report is as bad as a report can get. It is more representative of a Kremlin kangaroo court than the best America has to offer. After a career-start seven-year stint in Washington, DC, spent writing federal policy and law, my take on the Freeh report is that it is outrageously flawed.

Its worst defect is its use of wild conjecture (e.g. relying on hearsay in one email from Tim Curley to Graham Spanier and Gary Shultz about an unnamed “coach”). Nowhere does it say “While key facts are lacking or presently unknown, it is prudent to await casting judgment….” Rather, Freeh’s report is judge, jury, and executioner all at once, and it clearly aimed to destroy one person: Joe Paterno.

Importantly, Freeh’s report exonerated the sitting PSU trustees, most of whom had sat idly by and never challenged Spanier, even when one or two trustees began to ask him hard questions. Were those lazy trustees culpable? Why not?

Most important, Freeh was used by PSU and the NCAA to lower the standards bar, to decrease expectations in college football, rather than to elevate them. By arguing that Joe Paterno was deeply flawed and a hypocrite, Freeh made the classic morally relative argument that we are all pathetic losers, that there are no real heroes, that there are no really good men, and that no one should expect any to show up anytime soon.

Finally, if the PSU trustees fell down on the job and used the Freeh report to cover up their failings, one cannot escape the sense that at least some of the Paterno family members do not grasp the positive way that Joe Paterno is still viewed by many of us Nittany Nation members.

Last year, while communicating with one of the Paterno kids, I was struck by his inability or unwillingness to recognize the breadth of Joe’s legacy. That is, if Joe Paterno left a legacy, then it is beyond the family to solely claim, because it is carried by his believers. Joe’s legacy belongs to all of us, because he was representative of all of our values, hopes, and expectations, and our support is not about the family, but about the symbol that was Joe Paterno.

To that end, wouldn’t it be refreshing to see the family rally the troops, rather than look so deeply inward. Casting the Freeh report as a culture war attack on rare core values, rather than on a person, would more accurately frame this subject.

Unlike the vast majority of people with an opinion on this subject, I have actually read the Freeh report. It sucks. It is unprofessional. It is unworthy of Louis Freeh’s name, and it is unworthy of Penn State University’s name. It is nearly useless in understanding all of what happened with Jerry Sandusky, and how he continued to molest and rape little boys when some adults around him either suspected or had been told he was a pedophile. Shedding light on 33% of an issue raises more questions than it answers. Truth is not what was sought, but it is what is at stake. Bigger truths, like traditional core values that are under attack everywhere, suffer from this.

So, it is my hope that the Paterno family, and former governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, will continue their efforts, and also expand them to encompass the bigger picture. Good luck, folks, we are standing with you.

The Sandusky Disaster: Kids Lose, Penn State Loses, NCAA Loses & There’s Still No Lesson Here

The Sandusky Disaster: Kids Lose, Penn State Loses, NCAA Loses & There’s Still No Lesson Here

By Josh First

August 16, 2012

With the mish-mash medley of legal, leadership, and National Collegiate Athletic Association results spilling out of the Jerry Sandusky child rape conviction, you’d have to believe that justice has been done, lessons learned, and responsible adults have reasserted control over one of the world’s leading academic institutions, Penn State University.

Sadly, you’d be wrong; it’s just not the case.

Instead, the best opportunity in decades to talk about child molesters, sexual abuse, pedophilia, increasingly bizarre social norms, and educational institutions has been missed. Sandusky’s legacy is so painful, so gut-wrenchingly disturbing, that everyone seems to be looking the other way down the street. Scapegoats are in demand, and the PSU football program is serving handily.

After reading the related press reports and the Louis Freeh report, the only person who stands out as a leader is the one un-named Trustee who persistently dogged former PSU president Graham Spanier, demanding information and explanations along the way, even as Spanier sandbagged, obfuscated, lied, and blustered. Louis Freeh’s report is otherwise itself deficient enough to demand another analysis of the facts.

One of the Freeh Report’s biggest deficiencies is its preachy tone and clear aim to discredit Coach Joe Paterno. A real investigation dispassionately uncovers facts, leaving the inferences and judgmental conclusions to decision makers. Diverging from that mode, the now re-corrected Freeh Report uses damning language, and makes recommendations, inferences, and insinuations that aren’t supported by the evidence.

One example is how Freeh uses Paterno’s statement that he “didn’t want to interfere with their weekends” as evidence of Paterno’s supposed reluctance to address Sandusky’s brand-new crimes after Michael McQueary reported one to him at 2:00 AM. As though waiting from 3:00 AM to 9:00 AM Sunday morning is a shockingly long time to wait to tell the most senior school administrators that you’ve been told that a grown adult with the highest standing is really a child rapist. This demonstrates that Freeh either missed the irony in Paterno’s statement, or he deliberately took it out of context in an attempt to smear Paterno by making him seem reluctant to report, and more culpable for Sandusky’s actions. Either way, Sunday morning calls about a Sunday morning child rapist do ruin your weekend, and they were made nonetheless.

But the worst example is Freeh’s reliance upon two emails from former Athletic Director Tim Curley, in which Curley invokes the paraphrase “Coach wants to know” to either pry information from VP Gary Schultz and Spanier or to encourage a decision about Sandusky’s future. In those two emails, Curley represented to Spanier and Schultz that he had communicated with former Coach Joe Paterno about their collectively developing understanding of Sandusky’s crimes, and he hinted that Paterno was apprised of the facts that we all now know after all of the reporting, investigation, and trial.

The problem with drawing damning inferences about what Paterno did nor did not know from just these two opaque emails is that lots of people misrepresent what public figures say and what their bosses say, said, believe, or want. They do it especially when they know that getting that person’s actual opinion will be difficult. I have participated directly in the politics of PSU’s Old Main, both as a PSU student leader and as a professional decades later. Like all educational institutions, that administrative wing is rife with intrigue, lies, posturing, one-upsmanship, deceit, conceit, gigantic egos backed up by zero, undeservedly high salaries, and worse. For Curley to invoke Coach Paterno in the emails without actually consulting him on a personnel issue, as opposed to a recruiting issue, would be par for the course. It would actually make Curley more human.

Those two emails tell us nothing about Paterno’s knowledge of the situation, only what Curley said.

But the Freeh report relies on them almost exclusively to establish that Paterno was not only tracking the Sandusky developments, but then actively quashing any public decision or exposure about them. By mistakenly (falsely?) claiming that Paterno maintained that detailed level of involvement, the entire football program has, by extension, become smeared and then punished.

In its rush to condemn Paterno, and by extension the entire PSU football program, the NCAA has relied on Freeh report’s single most judgmental, problematic word: “Culture.” As in “A culture of reverence for the football program that is ingrained at all levels of the campus [sic] community,” surprise, surprise; find me a top college football program that is any different. As in, Freeh’s inference goes, a university-wide culture of lying and cover-up; which is unsupported by the facts.

The problem with Freeh claiming that a culture of cover-up and sacrificing little boys’ bodies and souls on the altar of college football existed at Penn State is that no one outside of four senior people really knew what was going on with Sandusky. And one of those people, Paterno, not only followed protocol and notified his superiors, but also then spoke openly with a reporter and others in a way that indicates he believed he did what was required and regretted not doing more. Not to mention the 1998 police cover-up and Ray Gricar’s failure to prosecute Sandusky and then his mysterious disappearance….

Note to Louis Freeh and the NCAA folks: Three or four people do not make an entire university culture. Rather, The Culture that Joe Built was, and still is, made of millions of adults, nearly any one of whom would have gladly taken a baseball bat to Sandusky, and then notified the police that a pedophile had been discovered and justice had been administered. The great call to arms against Penn State is that, supposedly, the real culture beneath the surface is one of lies and deceit. The open horror within the PSU Alumni community at Sandusky’s crimes and at the cover-up by three leaders there belies Freeh’s insinuation and the NCAA’s grotesque penalty.

The NCAA’s rush to judgment, to be PSU’s judge, jury, and swift executioner without any due process, is clear evidence of a truly deficient culture, the same culture that Freeh decries about Spanier’s own similar leadership style.

The PSU Board of Trustees’ rush to embrace the NCAA’s ridiculous penalty is a shallow mea culpa and self-expiation through supposed self-sacrifice by a bunch of weak people who lacked the strength of character to act when they should have acted decisively, back in 1998, 2001, 2008, and 2010. Any Trustee wishing to now demonstrate his or her agreement with the NCAA’s penalty should immediately resign from the PSU board as a true sign of self-sacrifice. Current PSU president Rodney Erickson is cut from the same pathetic cloth, and he is also tainted by his long, weak-kneed proximity to Spanier: Resign immediately, Mr. Erickson. Get away from us.

And about that un-named Trustee: Whoever you are, I nominate you to be Penn State’s next president. You alone have demonstrated the strength of character and leadership that has been missing from the beginning until the end of this debacle. Please step up, whoever you are.

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