Paterno was neither smeared nor railroaded. If anything, he probably got off light. I hate that the affair killed him, or shortened his life, because it surely did. And I have no ill will towards him, but these mega universities in tiny towns where they dominate everything…including media - are just incubators for all kinds of corruption. At Penn State, it goes right to the top, where that loon President presided over not only this scandal, but Penn State;s part in the hockey stick graph scandal regarding global warming.
Same crap probably goes on in Tuscaloosa, Lexington, Chapel Hill…those places where big U of’s dominate tiny towns…..
I think you are half right on this. That loon president is an effin' liberal whose mission was to bring home the bacon to one of the largest state-related universities in the country. And Spanier could bring home the bacon. He lived a life of private jets, fund raising, grants, parties and politics. You mention the hockey stick graph ... Spanier and ilk like him are responsible for sucking up to the AlGore's of the world to get their money to grow a kingdom of ivory towers. Spanier is an unprincipled liberal who was completely willing to cover up any scandal that would effect his success.
Now to Paterno ... he did not get along or like Sandusky. Paterno fired Sandusky before Sandusky established his pattern of molesting boys. Paterno was running a major college football program, whether you like that job or not, it exists at every large college. That is a job filled with long days dedicated to a sport and growing young men (many of which are constantly in trouble, either with grades or with the law ... just the nature of the beast).
Given these facts, put yourself in Paterno's shoes when an assistant coach comes to him with an allegation against Sandusky. Paterno follows the protocol laid down by a liberal university administration and does due diligence for an incident that he did not even see. Spanier drops the ball. The campus police drops the ball. The DA drops the ball. The PA Dept. of Public Welfare drops the ball. The PA AG drops the ball. Paterno went back to coaching football, and literally in his daily coaching life he wanted nothing to do with the liberal administration. Paterno was a well noted conservative. He wanted to be left alone to do his job.
Personally, if I was in Paterno's situation, unaccustomed to seeing anyone younger than high school junior recruits, and coming from a generation that it is nearly impossible to imagine the hideous evils that Sandusky was performing, I would think that others were more qualified to deal with the problem ... especially when it wasn't Paterno's job to deal with the problem. Paterno reported an incident that he didn't even see. His hand off was fumbled.
Bottom line, Sandusky is evil, some in the university's administration were enablers and a whole lot of public officials were not doing their jobs. This doesn't damn 60k plus current students and hundreds of thousands of alumni ... many of which are conservative and don't like all of the liberal crap going on at PSU. My father and I are alumni. My daughter is in her freshman year. We know about the problems with the board of trustees and we do what we can to change things. JoePa shouldn't be made into a saint. He was a football coach; a damn great football coach that helped change college football and helped make many boys into men of principle.