<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Let us look on this busy summer news day at two large institutions that engaged in morally dubious practices during a period of time roughly bounded by the years 1998 and 2002. One of them is a major university. The other is a private, wildly successful venture-capital firm. What do they both have in common? We are discovering only now that their most prominent employees \u2014 indeed, the two figures central to the success enjoyed by both firms \u2014 spent an awful lot of time lying about what went on in the institutions under their control. In the latter case, the person actually seems to have lied about being in control at all. (A quick note on that Boston Globe story about Romney at Bain: the original &amp;quot;failed to credit&amp;quot; people like Josh Marshall, as well as David Corn at Mother Jones, who actually did what we used to call &amp;quot;breaking the story.&amp;quot; The Globe, which lives in existential dread that someone will yell about its politics on the radio, has subsequently corrected the record. Whatever. To the credit of my former employer, the Globe advanced the story considerably, and undoubtedly has launched it into the media ionosphere. And, I&amp;#039;m not sure if this was deliberate, but it released its story on the same day that the Romney campaign launched its latest ad campaign. High-larious, as my mother used to say.) Anyway, there is the Freeh Report... The evidence shows that Mr. Paterno was made aware of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, followed it closely, but failed to take any action, even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years, and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno&amp;#039;s. ...and there is the new history of Bain... Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.&amp;quot;...The timing of Romney&amp;#039;s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date. It has to make a man dizzy when he first realizes that he can pretty much lie with impunity, that his success has immunized him against the truth of what he actually is doing. We seem to have incubated an entire universe of out-of-control liars within the various institutions of our society and our culture. All week on the blog and in the new issue of Esquire, Tom Junod has been exploring that phenomenon at work, even among people who assure us that they&amp;#039;re doing it for our safety. Barclay&amp;#039;s is the latest, loudest voice in support of the proposition that this phenomenon of Institutions Against Truth is almost the entire operating dynamic of the international banking system. (&amp;quot;Reprehensible&amp;quot; doesn&amp;#039;t begin to describe it.) Joe Paterno, as if it wasn&amp;#039;t already obvious, buried the Penn State horrors because he was deeply confident that nobody would believe him capable of lying. Willard Romney is going to stick to his story about when he left Bain Capital \u2014 his campaign&amp;#039;s immediate response seemed to be, Pay no attention to those SEC documents... Olympics! \u2014 because he is deeply confident that nobody who counts is going to care if he is capable of lying. In all of these cases, you have confidence rotting into what would otherwise be called &amp;quot;entitlement,&amp;quot; if we were talking about people on food stamps or unemployment, and not the true owners of the country. Oh, and in case none of you are getting the point, Willard Romney is going to be entertained tonight at the palatial home of the undisputed \u2014 and disgustingly unincarcerated \u2014 emperor of unpunished destructive lying. Res ipse, y&amp;#039;all. THE LONG READ ON PENN STATE: In the Ruins of a Blue and White Empire, by Luke Dittrich "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14849/penn-state-bain-10588435/>