PROTECT CHILDREN, DON'T SHIELD INSTITUTIONS, OH, REALLY?

The President's Double Standard?

President Barack Obama says the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State has an important message for institutions far beyond college sports: that protecting children is more important than shielding institutions.

Apart from institutions reporting crimes, cleaning house and having their pants sued off, I wonder which institution is held to a different standard of accountability as it concerns litigious action, sometimes for cases going back 50 and 60 years if not more? Is it the Executive Branch of Government? No! Is it the Legislative Branch of Government? No! Is it the Judicial Branch of Government? No! Is it public schools and teachers' unions? No! Is it law enforcement? No! Is it the Roman Catholic Church? Yes!

A few blogs back when I was making comparisons with how the Church has handled its sex abuses scandal and crisis and how Penn State has handled it, I wrote the following:

But the bottom line is that if anyone knows for sure that a cleric is abusing a child and is an eye witness to it, like the case at Penn State, the first course of action is to call the police. I think that is the lesson learned. Don't deal with it in house first. Call the police.

But then is there a scandal just waiting to be reported concerning the police, lawyers, judges and the like? Will the press expose that corruption too?

And now we read:

A Penn State assistant football coach, who has been criticized for not doing more in an alleged rape of a boy by former coach Jerry Sandusky, said in an e-mail that he helped stop the assault and talked with police about it.

"I did stop it, not physically, but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room," assistant coach Mike McQueary wrote in the November 8 e-mail to a former classmate obtained by the Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper.

"No one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds," McQueary said. "Trust me."

McQueary also wrote that he "did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police" following the alleged incident involving Sandusky.

The information is the first to indicate he had discussions with police.

If what assistant coach Mike McQueary says is true, why would Joe Paterno have to go to the police too? One would think if he thought McQueary did, all that Joe would have to do is to tell college officials which he did.

But the greater question is, "will the press investigate the police" in this situation and around the country and go back 50 and 60 years in all precincts throughout the USA and demand heads roll, pay out be made and the like? Can an ordinary citizen-victim sue the police, the state or the government or is that just for Church institutions, the boys scouts and the like?

What about suing congress and going back 50 and 60 years?

On July 14, 1983 the House Ethics Committee recommended that Rep. Dan Crane (R-IL) and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) be reprimanded for having engaged in sexual relationships with minors, specifically 17-year-old congressional pages.[1] Washington, D.C., law specifies an age of consent of 16, meaning that the relationships were legal;[2] however the committee felt "any sexual relationship between a member of the House of Representatives and a congressional page, or any sexual advance by a member to a page, represents a serious breach of duty." The Congressional Report found that in 1980, a year after entering office, Crane had sex four or five times at his suburban apartment with a female page and in 1973, the year he entered office, Studds invited a male page, who testified he felt no ill will towards Studds, to his Georgetown apartment and later on a two-week trip to Portugal. Both representatives admitted to the charges.[3]

Barney Frank - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1981 to present. Admitted to having paid teenager Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman's Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.

Yes, let's hold institutions accountable and protect kids and teenagers.

Oh, and what about President Clinton and his abuse of a White House intern? She wasn't a teenager, but she was an intern. Can the White House be sued? No!