Saturday Night Live wishes it could broadcast this routine, but the topic is so horrifying it couldn't be viewed on any satirical show, now matter how self-satirizing it is.
Bob Costas interviewed Jerry Sandusky by phone last night on NBC's Rock Center. Who on Sandusky's team thought that was a good idea? Aside from everything that he denied, this is what Sandusky admitted he did:
I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs, without intent of sexual contact. . . .
Costas: Are you denying that you had any inappropriate sexual contact with any of these underage boys?
Wait a second. Isn't it already inappropriate to shower nude and horse around alone with 10-year-old boys? And what's this about touching their legs?
Then there was this exchange:
Costas: Are you sexually attracted to young boys? To underage boys?
Sandusky: Am I sexually attracted to underage boys?
Costas: Yes.
Sandusky: Sexually attracted? You know, I enjoy young people. I love to be around them.
You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to figure that a man is doing undercover cognitive work when he twice repeats a question asking whether he is sexually attracted to young boys. Sandusky almost, but not quite, asked Costas: "It depends what you mean by sexually attracted."
Wouldn't most adults reflexively and instantly say, "No, I'm not, and I'm appalled that you would ask me such a question"? We especially expect somebody, appearing on national television, to issue a decisive negative response to the idea of being a sexual predator. After all, he is on television for the purpose of refuting the claims.
It's almost as though Sandusky is laying down tracks for a mental illness defense: You can listen to that interview and tell that I'm not in my right mind, that I'm completely out of control. Who, under those circumstances, wouldn't just scream No when asked whether they desired boys sexually. I was clearly in some alternative universe.
And nobody at Penn State, or at the charity where he met these boys, or in Sandusky's home, or family noticed that he is clearly off base—to use everybody's favorite word in such circumstances, "inappropriate?"
It seems the whole population of Penn State's home town was on a different planet. Or in "Happy Valley," as the State College area is popularly known. Happy for whom?
Or is that happy as in ignorance is bliss.
Follow Stanton on Twitter
