Well you know, this "bottom line" of yours sums it up nicely: Paterno wasn't "blameless." Which was why he was fired.
You & Penn State supporters can go round & round which your % pie graphs of who deserved more blame than Paterno; but you won't ever be able to extract blame from Paterno.
I mentioned fairly early on this thread: Silence IS a cover-up. You don’t have to “prove” the negative (the silence). The silence itself is the cover of darkness. You can see the light through the darkness — and there was no light within the Penn State staff who knew what went on.
In this way, then, as this rolled along...at some point at least, it involved into a conspiracy of silence. I don't know if that was the intent from the beginning. We don't have enough info on that. But at some point, it evolved into that. The conspiracy WAS the darkness; and they would let no light to emit on the matter.
So your comment that In your mind it was cover up because Paterno waited 24 hours is only a very minor indicator. The 24-hour wait paled in comparison to the near-decade long silence of McQueary and his direct supervisor, Joe Paterno. And by "silence" I mean ANYBODY off-campus who would do any good in getting Sandusky off the campuses for good.
All your other points about "employers having policies" and "you have no right to follow up" either apply to the short run and shut out the ethics of opposing someone who rapes boys...or become absolutely ludicrous when you start substituting just about any other felony.
I mean if someone told you they saw a murder & body disposal on campus and you told your superior, are you truly "done" with the thing? No need to "follow up" because employers have taken from you the right to "follow up"...as the weeks, months, and years go by...as you wonder why the detectives have yet to talk to your underling or you about the murder???
In this vein, your arguments become quite silly.
Your argument is complete crap. All you are after is a blood frenzy and some kind of turd world blame fest. I want to catch everyone responsible and cart them to jail, not have my media sacrificial lamb that I can wallow in their symbolic blood and feel righteous. This isn’t about me, or you, or your feelings - it’s about justice.
You seem to have almost a demonic desire to focus this on Paterno and McQueary when they were but one incident in a series, many of which were outside of JoePa’s knowledge and influence but not Curley’s, Schultz’s, the campus and city cops, and the DA. Why do you keep ignoring them for your pound of flesh?
You do realize that when Paterno and McQueary reported their incident, that was the SECOND time that Sandusky had been reported for doing something inappropriate with the SAME kid? Was THAT JoePa’s responsibility too, even though he likely had never heard about it? That’s the whole point, Sandusky was retired and most of what he was doing was outside of JoePa’s influence, but not the people directly above him - Curley, Schultz, the DA, Spanier, etc.
I don’t get your willful obtuseness to try and cover up for these people. Joe had his sins of inaction, but their sins were willful obstruction, obstruction hinting at a much wider set players and a possible ring. Don’t know why you and so many others keep putting an Alinsky like focus on JoePa and ignoring the bigger fish while trying to cover it up with some crap that JoePa was this all-powerful persona that could move mountains with his mighty hand. Apparently not, since when he took McQueary to Curley, Curley sure didn’t seem scared enough of him to do anything about it.
There are alot of people to bring to justice here but you keep focusing solely on Joe Pa. It kind of bothers me.