While there is a lot of focus on the school itself, someone else needs to be question about the handling of the sex abuse at Penn State. That person is the now governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett. Corbett served as the attorney general of Pennsylvania from 2004 until this year, when he was elected governor. The sex abuse case was in the hands of the attorney general for three years and the grand jury didn’t release the report until after Paterno got his record 409th win. Something smells really fishy there and this statement by Corbett really adds to it:

The Penn State trustees had already said they would appoint a committee to investigate the “circumstances” that resulted in the indictment of Sandusky, and of Curley and Schultz. The committee will be appointed Friday at the board’s regular meeting, which Gov. Tom Corbett said he plans to attend, and will examine “what failures occurred and who is responsible and what measures are necessary to ensure” similar mistakes aren’t made in the future.

One of those failures obviously happened at the hand of Corbett. Perhaps the U.S. Justice Department should investigate him and his failure to properly handle this case. Of course if that happens we can expect the standard response from many in the media that this is “the Obama administration going after a Republican governor”, but politics has nothing to do with this. We are talking about the sexual abuse of children by a known serial predator and the failure of a state school and top law man of a state failing to act properly. If this was a Democratic governor and George Bush were President, I would demand the exact same thing!

While everyone is concerned about the future of Penn State, I am worried about what this says about America. We appear more and more to put sports and institutions ahead of our own children and that is a horrible thing for what should be a rational society. Only the swiftest and most stern action can help repair that broken image now.