Fotheringay-Phipps #fundie boards.straightdope.com

ISTM that Dottie Sandusky and the posters to this thread share a common premise, i.e. that the accusations against Sandusky are all-or-nothing. Either all are true down to the last detail, or all are false and Sandusky is a persecuted saint.

The reality is that it's possible that some accusations are true and some are not, and within valid accusations, that some details are true and some are not. Meaning that while based on all evidence Sandusky was a serial child molestor, that does not preclude the possibility that other opportunists also jumped in with a chance to score a financial settlement, settle an old score or whatever. And it does not preclude the possibility that some genuine victims are misremembering (or possibly even misrepresenting) details of or relating to their abuse.

So it's possible - just possible - that Dottie Sandusky is simply relating the truth as she knows it: she did not in fact ever hear any suspicious sounds coming from that basement. And either the victim in that case was not a genuine victim, or he was a genuine victim who misrembered after the years how loud the sounds were, or perhaps even misjudged it at the time etc. etc.


Where she's going wrong - assuming this is true - is in making the leap to the assumption that this accuser's entire story must be fake, and that the other accusers' stories must also be fake, and so on. However, this is a premise shared with many others on the other side of the issue, who assume that since the evidence shows Sandusky to be a serial molestor it must follow that the particular detail of this kid making noise in the basement must also be true.

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So, she should call her own son a liar and ignore that her husband molested him? And, if she doesn't do that, but accepts that her son is telling the truth, then what - she should believe that he was molested, but all of the other kids were lying? OK, so maybe not all of them - maybe she just believes he moslested half of them - does that really change anything at all? I think if she said, "yeah, turns out he was a serial molester, but I never heard anything from the basement that one time" people might actually buy it. But right now she's landing square in the 'blind eye' camp and it's not unreasonable to assume she probably knew something was going on and chose not look too hard.

I wouldn't put too much into the "own son" bit.

Matt Sandusky is not the Sandusky's biological son and is not someone who was raised by the Sanduskys. He is a former juvenile delinquent who became their foster child at the age of 17 and was adopted at age 18. (
cite
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There's no particular reason for Mrs. Sandusky to find Matt Sandusky any more credible than any other accuser, and her feeling of betrayal would be even stronger.

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