Our Man in Vienna

Snitching on a Predator

From Alan Dershowitz: Is Paterno Getting a Bum Rap?:
(Joe) Paterno and I come from roughly the same generation.
We grew up during the period of McCarthyism,
and my parents taught me, as his parents may well have taught him,
that the most unforgivable sin is to ‘snitch’ on one’s friends and colleagues….
Others point out that the Catholic Church too, is a hierarchical organization,
and when priests reported abuse to their bishops and the bishops
reported the abuse up the hierarchy, the problem persisted.
Yet others take the view that if Penn State is a hierarchy like the Vatican,
then Paterno was ‘the Pope,’ and the buck stopped with him.
He, not his superiors, was the person responsible for reporting the episode to the police.
That seems unfair in light of the fact that popes can’t be fired,
and yet Paterno was discarded like a bag of putrid garbage,
when it served the interests of the Board of Directors to distance themselves from him.” [1]

Alan Dershowitz has an interesting slant. We don’t snitch.
We learned that in the days of Tail-Gunner Joe. Too bad, kids!

And it must be noted Dershowitz came to Paterno’s defence –
not before it hit the fan, but rather while it was hitting the fan.
That’s true loyalty – but to what?!

Dershowitz presents comparisons with the Vatican.
The comparisons are valid. Penn State is indeed microcosm.

Paterno, who kept things under wraps, can’t come clean.
Death conveniently removed him from the scene.

In the macrocosm, the Pope can’t be fired, as was the President of Penn State,
nor has the Big Boss conveniently removed him from the scene – he has to face the music.
Survivors of abuse have brought charges against him at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Get thee to the Hague, Alan! This is one that’s made to measure for you!

Alan Dershowitz

-Herbert Kuhner

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[1] Huffpost/Newsmax , Nov. 11, 2011.