Ziegler: from zero to repulsive in 60 seconds

[the_archfiend]

The John Ziegler angle on the Jerry Sandusky debacle has just turned completely nauseating. Dom Cosentino again, in Deadspin:

We told you yesterday about filmmaker John Ziegler's lunatic shouting tour to promote his jailhouse interview with Jerry Sandusky. Ziegler had hoped to use that interview to help rescue Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials from allegations that they covered up Jerry Sandusky's sex crimes against children. That effort has backfired spectacularly.

Ziegler's plan, which included airing portions of the Sandusky interview on television, was so misguided even the Paterno family has distanced themselves from him. Another part of that plan called for revealing the name of the victim from the infamous 2001 Penn State shower episode. Ziegler eventually reconsidered, but then it was posted on his site anyway, where it remained for several hours. In the text, the victim's first name appeared five times, his last name once, and the name also showed up for a while in the URL link to a separate document. Ziegler admitted he made a "stupid mistake," but he also claimed that his websites "were immediately hit with a massive and coordinated cyber attack" that initially prevented him from making post-publication edits.

So Ziegler's excuse for outing a (previously) underage, (previously) anonymous victim of sexual assault by a male adult is that he was originally going to do so, changed his mind, then changed his mind back, was subsequently hacked or DDoS'ed (or so he claims; there is, of course, no real proof offered up for this) and thereby prevented from removing the material in question.

Sure.

Never mind the fact that several of Ziegler's Tweets (included in the article) first sell the salaciousness of "the real story of Victim 2", take time out to respond to a series of Twitter trolls, pull back on the "real story" angle and eventually go into "I was hacked!" mode shortly thereafter.

Seriously, is anyone out there gullible enough to take Ziegler's bullshit seriously? Anybody?

Ziegler's case isn't helped by the following, either:

Now keep in mind that Ziegler had every intention of outing the man known as Victim 2. He made a subtle reference to it in his stupid challenge to the media published last week. Monday morning, Matt Lauer had to interrupt Ziegler to assure viewers of Today that the name wouldn't be revealed on the air. Yesterday afternoon, Ziegler wrote that if Victim 2 "agreed to speak to me and explain this to me himself, that I would gladly consider not releasing his identity." He later denied that was a threat and accused TMZ of defaming him after the site called him out on it.

That last sentence is especially telling, since it comes perilously close to the old "I'm sorry if I made anybody uncomfortable by something I refuse to own up to" non-apology. But then again, Ziegler seems completely comfortable with such actions:

By this morning the victim's name had been removed. Ziegler tweeted out a link to what he called a "series of apologies." He mentioned victims' rights advocates, his webmaster, his many supporters, "members of the Sandusky family and their representatives," his own wife, and "those, who like me, [sic] desperately want the truth to come out here." John Ziegler did not apologize to the child-sex abuse victim whose identity he shared with the world because of his "stupid mistake."

So the only person who was left out of that cascade of mea culpas is the victim himself. He even managed to apologize to "members of the Sandusky family and their representatives", but not one of his victims. Fantastic.

My wish, of course, is that Ziegler has run afoul of some Pennsylvania rape-shield law that will make his 15 minutes very, very expensive and uncomfortable. It's exactly what the douchebag deserves.