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That ultra-creepy Sandusky interview

What a world we live in now. I was sitting in the waiting room at a Honda dealership yesterday while my car got serviced. CNN was on, and there I saw Bob Costas asking Jerry Sandusky via telephone. if he was sexually attracted to boys. I leaped to distract my seven-year-old son, who was with […]

What a world we live in now. I was sitting in the waiting room at a Honda dealership yesterday while my car got serviced. CNN was on, and there I saw Bob Costas asking Jerry Sandusky via telephone. if he was sexually attracted to boys. I leaped to distract my seven-year-old son, who was with me. Lord have mercy, the stuff that’s out there in the atmosphere for kids to take in.

Anyway, it kind of blew me away, the answer he gave when Costas posed that question to him in the now-famous interview (transcript here.) An Andrew Sullivan reader who says he used to do therapeutic work with imprisoned pedophiles analyzes it:

Obviously, if he were innocent, there is only one answer to this question: “No!” (Again, imagine if someone asked you that question. There would be only one answer and it would be emphatic, and probably outraged.)

But, listen carefully to his response. First, he repeats the question – twice. Next, he outlines his “enjoyment” of young people. Then, he says he “loves to be around them.” Finally, he catches himself and eventually gets to “No,” nearly fifteen seconds after the question is posed. Again, this is classic pedophile. He first attempts to explain himself – almost getting lost in that explanation – before he finally comes to the only obvious answer.

Meanwhile, it’s been reported that Mike McQueary has e-mailed to friends implying that he didn’t walk away from Sandusky raping that kid, as the grand jury report indicates. There are various reports, one citing an unnamed source close to the investigation, others citing somewhat vague e-mails McQueary sent to friends, saying that McQueary did in some sense stop the attack he witnessed that night. If this is true, then the grand jury report that we’ve all relied on to damn McQueary’s actions (“The graduate student was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate student left immediately, distraught”) is inaccurate — a terrible injustice to him. If true. However, that doesn’t change the fact that whatever he did that night, McQueary appears to have joined Paterno and the Penn State leadership in covering up and ignoring it for nine years.

Meanwhile, 10 more alleged victims have come forward, the NYT reports.

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