Steve McIntyre writes about what many of us have been thinking about Penn State’s failures at investigating its own, such as the appearance of a whitewash investigation done about Dr. Michael Mann and Climategate. He writes:
On the same day that Nature published yet another editorial repudiating public examination of the conduct of academic institutions, Penn State President Graham Spanier was fired from his $813,000/year job for failing to ensure that a proper investigation was carried out in respect to pedophilia allegations in Penn State’s hugely profitable football program. The story is receiving massive coverage in North America because the iconic Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno, was also fired today.
CA readers are aware of Spanier’s failure to ensure proper investigation of Climategate emails and his untrue puffs about the ineffective Penn State Inquiry Committee, reported at CA here and by the the Penn State Collegian as follows:
…
Spanier was fired not because of any personal role in the Sandusky football scandal, but because of negligence on his part in ensuring that the allegations were properly investigated. This was not the only case in which Spanier failed to ensure proper investigation of misconduct allegations. As noted above, Spanier had falsely reported to the Penn State trustees and the public that the Penn State Inquiry Committee had properly interviewed critics and had examined the Climategate documents and issues “from all sides”.
Full story here
I wouldn’t want to be standing too close to Mann right now for a variety of reasons, least of which his underpants might be thoroughly soiled.
It’d certainly be a crime against nature itself if they didn’t re-open the investigation on this news.
OMG! The chickens be comin’ home to roost!
When you develop a habit of rationalizing the turning of a blind eye, it has a way of coming back to haunt you.
The ethical standards that PSU applied to Mann applied to Sandusky.
Penn State has been trying to get rid of Paterno for some time. Still, it begs the question, “Why is Mann still there?”
One has to wonder how they explained to Spanier why he was being fired.
“Look buddy, the investigation into Mann was one thing, this is different. Mann is just doing climate research. So maybe he faked the results and you buried it, so what. Whose gonna care? So they tax fossil fuel until old people can’t afford it and freeze to death and poor people die of hunger because they can’t afford food anymore, yeah, that could be bad for a lot of people. But this is different. You tarnished the reputation of our football team. we’ve got no choice but to fire your sorry *ss. I mean, its FOOTBALL! How stupid are you? Get out, and take this $3 million severance package with you, you pr**k.”
davidmhoffer has said it better than I could.
The coverup went far and wide. Penn State is now properly referred to as Perp State. Vide Wendy Murphy recently on MSNBC.
Can we hope for some clarity and an honest Penn State President? I think covering their arses is much more important than a stupid thing call integrity.
Nothing will change in the hallowed/shallowed halls!
I agree with Steve’s theme. If the Penn State academic and police officials would overlook something as evil as pedophilia for the sake of money, what possible scruples could they have had that would prevent them from doing the same for Mann’s rather petty crimes.
The saga of the incompetent and unethical continues. I can only imagine their will be more of these types of scandals on the warmista lefties side – this is precisely what they build with their post normal garbage science and their refusal to abide any scientific or moral principals whatsoever. Morally bankrupt disgusting scumbags. I wouldn’t take an education from Penn St if they offered to pay me. Sad, I used to consider them to be a good school.
Jesse says:
November 10, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Penn State has been trying to get rid of Paterno for some time. Still, it begs the question, “Why is Mann still there?”
Jesse asked
“Why is Mann still there?”
Answer: MONEY by the truckload.
It seems in both cases (that we know of so far) President Spanier was trying to protect Penn State’s revenue stream with his “internal investigations”, or lack thereof. Dang, and here I thought that our hallowed universities were above such conflicts of interest. /sarc
Isn’t the proper football analogy that of a blown coverage?
And because football is at the center of this it will be investigated and reported on until everyone is sick of it. As it should be.
Dream on if you expect much notice of the climate issue when a powerful football story is happening.
Looks like Mann isn’t the only one that should be in the State Pen instead of Penn State.
So how many bad apples in Penn State’s administration and faculty are really there? My guess is more than two or three. Corruption begets corruption… that is why it is called corruption!
[SNIP: Over-the-top, classless and libelous. -REP]
I hate to sound so crude, but after covering up the rape of a minor in your locker rooms, what’s whitewashing an investigation into scientific papers that would bore the eyelids off of most of the people who might try to read them?
Addendum, if you are thinking about doing a Vet’s day post, this is what our boys fight to protect, so well put in this piece:
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-ferrara092501.shtml
So they cover up what is going on in the Football Team.
No wonder they protected the Hockey Team.
This is worse than we thought.
And totally unprecedented!
Why should there being any association between commonly-accused abuses in college
big-money athletics, and accused-abuses of people having low relationship with with
big-money college athletics?
Suppose a star men’s football player or a star men’s basketball player commits a rape, and the
college/U. responds with “whitewashing”. I find that making the news frequently enough – what
does that have to do with colleges/universities having leftwing bias in global warming issues?
Is it not mostly left-wingers complaining more about colleges/universities whitewashing their rapists on big-money sports teams?
For that matter, Penn State U. has its main campus in the ~85% of Pennsylvania land area that gets described as being “like Alabama” or “more like Alabama than Alabama is”.
Anyhoo, I seem to think that college/U. athletics abuses in big-money sports has low correlation
with abuses typically-done by those of opposing ideology on the right-left political spectrum.
Not that I am claiming so-far that the correlation is outright negative – merely low, due to some
colleges / universities tolerating whatever-brings-in-the-money from all-available-sources “by any means necessary”.