“The Daily Show” host has a few words for students who flooded the streets of State College in support of Joe Paterno.
The attention-grabbing nightmare at Penn Sate University has been dominating news headlines, talk radio and water cooler discussions. Over the course of the past week the president of the school has resigned, the athletic director has stepped down and legendary coach Joe Paterno has been fired. The scandal surrounding former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky’s alleged sexual abuse of multiple young boys is perhaps the worst in college sports history. According to the grand jury documents multiple high-ranking officials at the nationally renowned university turned a blind eye to Sandusky’s horrific and unforgivable actions in an effort to keep the reputation of their school and their infallible coach intact.
The result of Sandusky’s disgusting behavior and the school’s subsequent coverup has been the equivalent of nuclear fallout on a college campus — it has been a public relations disaster of historic proportions. The failure on the part of the administration to report Sandusky to the proper authorities is criminal, and Paterno’s complacency since 1998 when he first knew of his assistant’s actions is equally terrible.
As Jon Stewart pointed out, the thousands of students at Penn State who rioted in the wake of Joe Paterno’s firing claimed it was unjust after all he had done for the school. The real injustice is what happened to the children who continued to be raped and abused by Sandusky because Paterno kept his mouth shut over the years. Sure, he reported the offense to his superior and fulfilled his legal obligation, but morally and ethically, he is guilty as sin.
Speaking of sin, the Sandusky situation and the school’s coverup has drawn many unflattering comparisons to the Roman Catholic Church, however no one has made the analogy more eloquent or heartbreakingly poignant than Stewart.
November 11, 2011 at 7:45 pm, Mirabel said:
Once again, Stewart rocks!
November 14, 2011 at 10:19 am, Anonymous said:
What a disgusting chain of events at Penn State! It’s all very well that Sandusky’s in jail for his disgustingly abusive sexual behavior towards many young boys, who’ll be marked for life by being traumatized like this, and that Joe Paterno was s**t-canned for being the accessory to Sandusky’s actions and behavior that he was, but the college should’ve gone further and shut down the football team for awhile. Sure, that brings money to the University, but the University’s not going to want, if one gets the drift.
What does it say about the mentality of Penn State and about America generally, when college students tear up the place by rioting over the firing of the oh so revered Joe Paterno, their football coach? It does speak volumes, and not positively, either.
Thanks, Jon Stewart, for this article.
November 14, 2011 at 4:27 pm, Tracey said:
I don’t think the football team should suffer for the indiscretion of the coaches. the kids had nothing to do with their behavior or their actions.
It’s funny that when college kids riot I don’t hear the same racial anger as when there are other riots.
November 14, 2011 at 8:35 pm, Come on said:
Do you REALLY believe that some of the players did not know about this?!!
College teams are like family. Rumors fly and i can PROMISE you that some folks knew.
Either way they are going to suffer because they will not have good recruits, and are going to get booed all over the place. No good coach is going to want to go there.
November 14, 2011 at 11:04 pm, Anonymous said:
Maybe the football team and the other college kids had nothing to do with the actions and behaviors of the coaches, but the fact that the students at Penn State continued to support these coaches after what they did is disgraceful.
There was no racial anger in this riot, because race wasn’t the issue.
November 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm, What a shame said:
Riot’s in the streets against firing someone who protected child abuser. This is almost worst than the entire situation. This puts everything in to perspective. We value a game (yep it’s just a game no matter how great), over the welfare of the children.
I would never want to play football for Penn for the next decade until people forget about this one, and I can promise you that all the high school coaches are saying the same thing. Penn is going to get a bunch of with low morals after all this is said and done. Which in the long run will cause more problems down the raod. Penn deserves it all and then some
November 16, 2011 at 1:53 am, Katarra Parson said:
This is why I love Jon Stewart. Right on the mark. Saying kudos would be an understatement…..
November 16, 2011 at 1:53 am, Katarra Parson said:
This is why I love Jon Stewart. Right on the mark. Saying kudos would be an understatement…..
January 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm, Simpsonbret said:
And you don’t think some of the “players” didn’t know this was going on?!Fuck “sports”…waste of time and overrated..egomaniacs that haven’t grown up.