WASHINGTON POST Editorial: IN JULY, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) urged Penn State University to accept the NCAA’s tough and appropriate punishment stemming from former football coach Jerry Sandusky’s serial rape of children. Now the governor has turned unrepentant. In a rash lawsuit filed last week against the NCAA, Mr. Corbett and the state seek to reverse the sanctions, suggesting that the real victims in the Sandusky case are Penn State and its football-loving fans, students and merchants. What a disgrace.
At the core of the NCAA’s penalties — which include a $60 million fine; a four-year ban on postseason play and the voiding of victories from Sandusky’s years as an assistant coach — is the recognition that top officials at Penn State ignored and enabled criminality because of a culture that venerated football above all else. In such a culture, crime, morality and basic decency were swept aside in the name of protecting an idolized program…
The lawsuit and Mr. Corbett’s newfound objections to the NCAA’s sanctions have the whiff of political desperation. The governor faces an uphill race for reelection next year, and he has been the target of wrath from Penn State alumni, a significant constituency in Pennsylvania. Tellingly, the suit was filed without the input of the state’s incoming attorney general, Kathleen Kane (D). Ms. Kane ran on a promise to examine Mr. Corbett’s handling of the Sandusky case, which he began investigating as attorney general in 2008... (more)
EDITOR: Gov. Corbett has so disgraced himself that when he at long last, albeit for self serving purposes, raises a legitimate issue, no one wants objective evaluate the contention. The whole mess gets sadder and sadder.
