At Baylor, Charity Toward Kenneth Starr Follows Outrage

Well, have to keep the boosters giving.

What is the surprise - the connected always make out one way or another.

Would Mr. Powell have written this story had the same circumstances occurred at another university? What seems to be bothering Powell isn't predatory behavior by a group of athletes who felt themselves above normal standards of decency. No, it's Kenneth Starr and his religious views. Hypocrisy? The case can be made. But isn't sexual abuse anathema to the values of any academic institution it occurs at? Aren't the numerous other institutions where this has occurred equally hypocritical?

The villain in this set piece appears not to be the athletes but Starr. The victim (judging by the amount of space in Powell's discussion) is not any of the women who were attacked but Bill Clinton. The nefarious organization exerting its influence on campus isn't the Baylor football program but Christians generally. Up is down, down is up, and for those of you keeping score at home the most heinous act involved in the scandal was that a college president fixed his hand in the shape of a bear claw and lead a charge across and overly expensive football field.

Perhaps no more can be expected from a former political writer for the style section of the Washington Post. After all, bashing Christians does seem to quite fashionable these days.

I can only hope that Kenneth Softy Starr reads this excellent piece and is forced to seek more contrition for his "leadership" of Baylor University. Karma has struck this moral standard bearer, Mr Soft Spoken and Persistent, who sickened most of the nation with his shaming a president for adult transgressions while in office, but as a man placed in a responsible position couldn't see fit to protect his students at Baylor. It's a wonder this tarnished knight of the Republican Right is still on staff at the university. Hope he spends the next few years immersed in self-defense when all the courtsuits come down on him and Riles. Hope he runs into the same Torquemada's he set the standard with. There's where his contrition will come full circle.

Most of our "fine Christian institutions" have no connection WHATSOEVER with what Jesus was trying to teach. Our society's hypocrisy is amazing.

I want to see him disbarred.

Starr did something to be punished, but, for unexplained reasons, he was nevertheless retained by the university, in two high level positions. Those facts suggest there is more to learn in this case, and concealing that knowledge is likely the reason the Baylor Regents decided to keep Starr pacified, and close at hand.

Michael Powell remains the best writer at the Times.

Somewhere Bill Clinton is enjoying the irony. Starr worried so much about Monica but not all the women at Baylor.

Starr should be fired.

The ironies here are so obvious: Baptists (like Catholic bishops) cover up crimes in precisely the moral arena in which they are bearers of the puritanical standard; the inquisitor gets convicted of a major offense (though not thoroughly punished). Do we really need all these column inches of Mr. Powell's snark to get these points? How about some information and analysis instead, serious reporting that tells us something we can't see for ourselves: Are there *any* universities at which the principles that govern other aspects of the institution's life are applied to Division I sports programs? Are big-time college sports automatically corrupting? If nothing--not religion or ethics or a tradition of moral seriousness--can get in the way of sports success, there should be serious pressure on educational institutions to get out of the business.

God shines his love on all things Christian and football. Or is it football first?

You'd think that the man who used the Watergate template (it's not the crime, it's the coverup) to paralyze our nation for two years would have taken that lesson to heart.

Ah, hubris. No wonder this week I read the piece where he now seems to regret being the Dark Knight back then. Sauce for the gander, too.

Let me understand this. The writer blames the following: Starr, Baylor, big time athletics, university administrations, athletes, et.al. Nowhere does he blame us (myself included). If we stopped attending, watching and enabling, this problem would quickly be resolved. Even a small dent in attendance , say a decline of 10%, would have positive ramifications.

Of course, that will never happen. We are too wedded to our need for entertainment.

What did he know and when did he know it? Those answers will more likely come from some journalistic probing than from the school's internal report. Did President Starr lie about any of these issues? If so, then not only is he guilty of a sin, which Baylor seems to care more about than protecting rape victims, but Starr would also be in violation of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers. Texas may or may not have the same provisions as the Model Code, but if they do, they should start their own investigation.

Wouldn't be ironic if both the former prosecutor and his former target both turned out to be liars?

That wasn't "willful naïvete" at Baylor: it was willful whitewashing.

As a graduate of Baylor University, I'm hoping those young women find a very aggressive lawyer who will take Starr and Briles for everything they've got.

The captain needs to go down with the ship, not be rescued and given cushy "no show" job. They almost did the right thing, finally, but left so much undone.

Baylor, throw Starr overboard or you'll never get back to respectability.

The author left out Penn State as large universities corrupted by the money that flows from football and basketball. Starr is revolting and the tail wags the dog at too many large schools

What Baylor did is what I am beginning to believe is typical for much of Christianity today. Commercial, for profit Christianity is all about protecting the institution. Throw football into the mix and throw the mess into Texas and you get a completely predictable toxic sludge.

"Fine Christian university," indeed. In this regard there's no difference between secular and ecumenical educational institutions: money trumps everything.

Schools should not be involved in sports. Period, punto, end of story. Try concentrating on education for a change.

It's ironic. It's also Ken Starr's turn to be unmasked. What goes around always comes around, especially for hypocrites.

Hath irony no limit?

This criminal scandal should not be allowed to settle down until Starr-- monumental caster-of-first-stones-- is pounding the pavement in shame.