>> schieffer: today on "face the nation"" did romney give israel the green light to bomb iran? >> i look forward to chatting with you about further actions that we can take to dissuade iran from their nuclear folly. >> schieffer: as romney was talking tough about iran, back home ""newsweek"" was accusing him of being a wimp, in an issue that includes a surprising assessment of his foreign policy congressionals from his fellow republican john mccain. our jan crawford is with romney and will ask him. debbie wasserman schultz will offer her party's side. we'll also talk about the scandal at penn state and the harsh sanctions imposed by the ncaa. i'll talk about that with penn state's president rodney

erickson, who's catching it from both sides. >> i was faced with a very, very difficult choice. >> schieffer: what the scandal means for college sports across the country with sara ganim, the "patriot news" reporter who won the pulitzer for breaking the story. bill rhoden of the "new york times." buzz bissinger, who wrote "friday night lights," and our own james brown and jim roam of cbs sports. we'll close with a rare interview with former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor, long retired from the court but still making a difference. this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs from cbs news in washington, "face the nation" with bob schieffer. >> schieffer: and good morning again. well, after a visit to london that got him a lot of unwanted publicity in the british

tabloids, mitt romney is in jerusalem this morning, conferring with top israeli officials and reaffirming the bond between the united states and israel. but when a top romney foreign policy adviser told reporters there this morning "if israel has to take action on its own to prevent iran from being able to make the materials that could be used in a bomb, we would respect that decision." well, that has set off new questions. has romney given israel the go-ahead to bomb iran? our jan crawford just talked to governor romney this morning. here's her interview. >> reporter: governor, one of your aides said this morning you would respect israel's decision to take military action against iran on its own. does that mean you're giving the gene light to israel to bomb iran? >> i'll use my own words, and that is i respect the right of israel to defend itself, and we stand with israel. we're a nation-- two nations that come together in peace and

that want to see iran being dissuaded from its nuclear folly. so let me use my own words in that regard. >> reporter: but what does that mean to you, then, that you respect their decision? i mean, can you explain that a little more? >> well, i think-- because i'm on foreign soil, i don't want to be creating new foreign policy for my country or in any way to distance myself from the foreign policy of our nation. but we respect the right of a nation to defend itself. >> reporter: but would you or would you not then support israel's bombing of iran? >> well, again, that would be a statement which would be of a different nature than what our nation has already expressed with regards to iran. what we have said and with which i concur is that we should use every diplomatic and political vehicle that's available to us to keep iran from becoming a nuclear capability state. those actions should be executed with the greatest speed that we can muster. if all those options fail-- and

they've not all been scupted, they've not all failed entirely at this stage-- if all those options fail, then we do have other options and we don't take those other options off the table. but that's as far as i'm willing to go in terms of discussing this matter while on foreign soil. >> reporter: well, do you think the time for those diplomat solutions is running out or drawing to a close? >> well, there's no question when the spoke at the conference five years ago and laid out the seven steps i thought were necessary to dissuade iran from their nuclear folly, that since that time not all of those steps have been put in place. and we're five years closer. we're five years closer to a nuclear iran. >> reporter: why that? >> they have not slowed their process. all indications are they continue to amass enriched material that ultimately would allow them to have a nuclear bomb. that is-- that is something which is dangerous to the world. it's a national security threat

to america. and it threatens the very existence of israel. >> reporter: so you think that-- i mean, iran is a much more dangerous threat now than it was four or five years ago. why is that? >> well, iran has put in more centrifuges. it has now been able to enrich more uranium. it has more, therefore, capacity to build at some point a nuclear weapon. it's not there at this stage. they have further enrichment required, but they've had five years of enriching, and five years of construction and five years with which to work on-- if they excuse if they have chosen, either missile capacity or bomb-make capacity, in addition to the enriched material. so they're five years closer than they were when i spoke at herzleigh five years ago. >> reporter: do you think that reflects the failure of the world leaders to address some of these programs. >> i would hope the posture i

described five years ago would have been more fully implemented over the previous five years and think that had that been the case, we would not be as close to nuclearization as we are today. >> reporter: let me ask you some things about what you have said in the past. back in december you said before you were making any statements about policy with regards to israel, that you would call up your friend, the prime minister, benjamin netanyahu. is that the position you would take on, say, israel's policy regard in regards now. >> well, we always speak with our friends around the world. i'm sure our current president, likewise, would certainly want to communicate and have a discussion with our friends and allies around the world, and particularly those that are in the region which would be most affected by steps that we might take. but israel and america and many other nations are allies, and even some that are geopolitical adversaries concur with us that

iran must not become a nuclear nation. >> reporter: i'm trying to understand how your policies would be different from the current policies in the white house, and it seems that perhaps you would be willing to listen more to the prime minister. you said you would pick up the phone and call him first. is there a difference in tone? >> well, the challenge is you know we have a long-standing tradition in this country to follow the advice of senator vandenberg. so while i'm on foreign soil, i just don't feel i should be speaking about differences with regard to myself and president obama on foreign policy, either foreign policy in of the past, or foreign policy prescriptions. are there differences between us? of course. but being on foreign soil, particularly being here in israel, this isn't the right time for me to draft those out. but, again, i've spoken in the past. i've described my own views, and i think those continue to be the views that people could consider. >> reporter: some of those

views have sounded pretty hawkish, the way you've been talkintalking in terms of exprlr approach in the middle east. but i just got a copy of the "newsweek" cover that's going to be hitting the newsstands tomorrow that calls you a wimp. have you seen this? >> no. >> reporter: does that concern you? is that fair? >> they tried that on george herbert walker bush. he was a pretty great president and anything but. >> reporter: but it did hurt him to some extent, that narrative there. are you worried about what the meet meadia is saying here and this kind of storyline that gets out there, and how do you counter that? >> if i worried about what the media said i wouldn't get much sleep and i sleep pretty well. >> reporter: has anyone called you a wimp before? >> i don't recall. >> reporter: there's an interview with senator mccain and he said, "he has not got a lot of instincts on some of these national security issues, but he has the right instincts." does that sound like faint praiseto you? >> you'd have to ask him.

i respect senator mccain a great deal and i believe he has many ideas and suggestions that i would certainly want to avail myself of if i was in a setting that required the input of other leaders. senator mccain would be one of those that i'd want to hear from. >> reporter: you know, you kind of grounded your campaign on your economic experience and ability to turn things around with the economy and in the private sector. would you say that foreign policy is the area where you're weakest? >> i would say that foreign policy is a place where intelligence, resolve, clarity, and confidence in cause is of extraordinary importance. ronald reagan was one of our great forepolicy presidents. he did not come from the senate. he did not come from the foreign policy world. he was a governor. his resolve, his clarity of purpose. his intelligence. his capacity to deal with complex issues and solve tough problems served him extremely well, and if i were elected

president, i would i could rely upon those same qualities. >> reporter: it sounds like you're saying sometimes when a president steps into office he's dealing a host of issues on the world stage and perhaps it comes down to character because you can't anticipate what you're going to be dealing with. how would you describe the characteristics you would bring as president to dealing with foreign policy? >> i believe that as people will look at me, they'll see a person who has dealt with a number of very difficult and challenging circumstances and thecircumstane to successfully navigate through those. i believe people recognize i am someone who has confidence in america's cause. that i am clear in the purpose that america represents. and that i would exercise might, if it were necessary, with resolve. and i believe that that's the kind of posture which ronald reagan represented. i hope i would as well. i can tell that you ronald reagan was able to accomplish extraordinary purposes for our country without having to put our military forces into

conflict. only in one circumstance, which was in grenada, did our force goes in to a conflict setting. we were in a peacekeeping setting in lebanon. having strength, having a strong military, is the ally of peace. exercising that strength through military action is not always necessary if you have the confidence and clarity of vision and purpose which america demands. >> reporter: are you troubled by some of the growing isolationist sentiments that we're seeing in the republican party? >> i don't know that i see more in our party than i do across the country. there are-- there are some who would prefer to see america play a less-prominent role in the world. i believe the world benefits from american leadership. i believe this next century should be an american century. i believe as well that american strength is essential economic strength, family and value strength, military strength is essential for our own good that

these things not only suspect secure peace for other people but preserve peace for us and promise greater prosperity for america. >> reporter: what would the romney doctrine be then, when you're trying to decide whether to intervene abroad. >> my doctrine is as i've described, which is confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose, and resolve in our might. >> reporter: and the last question, do you think america is less secure today than it was in the ted olson war or after id after 9/11. >9/11. >> certain iran is closer to a nuclear weapon, and iran's nuclearization is the greatest single national security threat america faces. that's of great turn to me. i hope it is to people of our nation and people around the world. a nuclear iran is a traumatic and devastating potential threat to the world, and to america.

and all our efforts should be focused on making that our first priority keeping them from having that nuclear capacity our first priority. >> reporter: all right, governor, thank you very much. >> thanks john. >> reporter: i really appreciate your time. thank you. >> schieffer: now to get the other side of the story on mitt romney's visit to israel, the democratic party chair debbie wasserman schultz. it appears while he did not disagree with what his adviser said about "we would respect israel's right to attack iran," he did seem to be kind of walking back from that without really walking back from it. >> well, i think that's emblematic of-- and revealing of how mitt romney's entire trip overseas has gone so far. i think he's demonstrated pretty repeatedly since he's been out of the country that he lacks the experience, he lacks the

preparation, and the diplomatic skills to be able to be the commander in chief, to be able to be the president of the united states. starting out in england, in great britain, where he insults on the eve of a significant event for one of our strongest allies, makes a huge intelligence gaffe by revealing the existence and saying out loud the existence of their biggest intelligence agency. appearing not to know the name of the opposition leader, and now in israel, suggesting from his campaign staff that we would just go to war and back a decision to go to war, and now appearing to roll back. the bottom line is president obama has said that it is a top priority of the united states of america to ensure that iran never achiefs a-- its nuclear ambition, and that all options

are on the table, and inability of in fact, that includes all options, a military option being one of those. contingency plans exist for those military options, and, you know, if mitt romney believes that it's time to go to war to address iran's quest to achieve the nuclear mission, then he should say it. in fact, if mitt romney has any foreign policy position at all, which he has seemed to not indicate he has, then he should say them. that's the very least of the american voters can expect is that when you're running for president that you outline what you would do and what you would do differently from the president of the united states. >> schieffer: you know, i'm going to ask you about this new edition of "newsweek." they have on the cover mitt romney-- says "the wimp factor." this is reminiscent of sort of an infamous "newsweek" cover back when the first george bush was running for-- running and it

said-- they put out a cover that said, "fire department the the 'wimp factor'." is mitt romney a wimp? >> i think mitt romney has demonstrated repeatedly he has a penchant for secrecy, doesn't seem to have any interest in actually showing the american people his finances, important decisions about his investments, refuses to come clean on his time at bain capital and when he was really there, and be held accountable for the outsourcing of jobs and the offshoring of jobs and shipping jobs overseas. when he was forever of massachusetts was willing to put a call center in india, of all places, rather than the united states of the, has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to be all over the map. the most recent example is not being at all clear about where he is when it comes to our policy as it relates to making sure that iran never achieves its nuclear ambitions.

so i think he has left quite a bit of doubt about his level of preparation and readiness. >> schieffer: i can't let you off the hook without asking you about some pretty dismal economic figures that came out friday. our economy is really just limping along. it is president obama's policy. he's been there for a long time now. so with the election just 100 days away now, congresswoman, is the president running out of time here in terms of turpg this economy around? >> well, we have made progress from where we were when president obama took office. the economy had just contracted almost by 9%. now we've begun to turn things around and had our 12th straight quarter of growth. we have a long way to go. we need to make sure that we can continue to move forward in creating jobs and ge getting the economy turned around. the best way to do that is make sure we can get congress to adopt the american jobs act that the president proposed which

would ensure we could create a million jobs right now, that we could take the bill the senate just passed to extend the middle class tax breaks. that ball is in republican speaker's john boehner's court. if we make sure we can provide certainty to the middle class, extend those middle class tax breaks right now, adopt the president's jobs act, then we will continue to make the kind of progress we need to have. >> schieffer: congresswoman, always nice to have you. >> thank you. >> schieffer: thank you.

>> schieffer: on monday, the national collegiate athletic association imposed some of the harshest sanctions ever on penn state in the wake of the child molestation scandal and the subsequent cover-up. the school was find $60 million. its athletic scholarships were reduced. it was banned from playing postseason games for four years. and its players can interes trao other schools without penalty if they choose. even though some wanted harsher penalties, some penn state trustees thought the penalty was too severe. so i sought out school president rodney erickson this week who agreed to the sanctions. here are the highlights of our interview. >> well, there was a great deal of criticism in the community of you, when you accepted on behalf of the university the sanctions

that were imposed by the n.c.a.a. some people 99 on the board said you just rolled over. i guess i would ask you, what do you say to them, and did you have any choice but to accept these sanctions? >> i was faced with a very difficult choice. it was made clear to me and to our legal team very early on in the week that we really had a choice which was multiple years of the death penalty or-- >> schieffer: in other words no football at all. >> no football, and the prospectes of additional sanctions beyond that death penalty, or accepting a consent decree that was driven down by the n.c.a.a. given the two alternatives, i felt that it was-- it was best to accept the consent decree. this allows us to continue to go on playing football. it allows us to go on helping to

support the other intercollegiate athletic teams that we have at the university. >> schieffer: well, do you yourself feel that somehow these sanctions were unfair? >> there are aspects of the sanctions, certainly, that i think were certainly very heavy. but we were given a choice, and i continue to feel that that was the best choice that we could make under the circumstances. the choice that i made really allows us to move forward. >> schieffer: i'll just go the bottom line-- do you feel secure in your job here? >> oh, yes. i-- i believe i have the strong support of the vast majority of the board. >> schieffer: now we have the victim of the molestation that the assistant coach saw in the locker room involving sandusky. his lawyers have come forward and said that he intends to sue the university.

i would guess this is going to be the first of many lawsuits. how is the university going to handle that? i mean, do you have insurance? can you withstand an onvault of lawsuits. >> we have, like any university of our size, both directors and officers, as well as general liability coverage. we believe that we are adequately covered. in addition to that, we hope to be able to settle as many of these cases as quickly as possible. we don't want to, if at all possible, drag victims through another round of cur court cased litigation. if we can come to an agreement with them, with their attorneys, we believe that would be the best possible outcome in this whole very, very difficult, tragic situation. >> schieffer: now it's my understanding among the

sanctions the n.c.a.a. imposed, it's a $60 million fine that you will pay out over a number of years. where does that money come from? >> we will pay that out in a combination of funds. we will use the football program's financial reserves that they have available to them. and in all likelihood, the university will have to extend the athletic department, a long-term loan that they can pay back as they get on their feet and as we adjust their budget going forward in the football program. >> schieffer: let me just ask you the basic question, as you look back on it now, did penn state put too much emphasis on football? >> our intercollegiate athletics program has been a tremendous success. to the extent that some parts of intercollegiate athletics perhaps became too separate and

became too much areas unto themselveses and not sufficiently wrapped into the rest of the university, that's something that we really are looking at right now and, of course, the freeh report made a number of recommendations with respect to that issue. >> schieffer: we'll have more of this interview with president erickson in our next half hour. i'll be right back with some news if facethe nation. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar.

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>> schieffer: a little local news, if i may. "face the nation" is the second oldest program on television. it began in 1954, 58 years ago. i've been here toe table for the last 21, and last pol, we began a new chapter. we expanded from a half hour to an hour. it was an experiment, frankly, and this week, the cbs network notified our affiliate stations that the experiment was successful. from hereon, "face the nation" will be a one-hour broadcast. i just wanted to take a moment to thank our affiliate station who found a way this year to include one one-hour broadcast on their scheduleds on very short notice, and most of all, i

want to thank those of you who watch our past. your numbers, i'm happy to say, continue to grow, and we appreciate it. and by the way, we don't intend to change much. no bells, whistles. we'll just turn on the lights, sit the key newsmakers down and ask the questions we think you would ask and if they don't answer we'll try to point that out. powerful and secure cloud.y that cloud is in the network, so it can deliver all the power of the network itself. bringing people together to develop the best ideas -- and providing the apps and computing power to make new ideas real. it's the cloud from at&t. with new ways to work together, business works better. ♪

>> schieffer: some of our stations are leaving us now. for most of you, we'll be right back with more of that interview with president erickson and see what he has to say about joe paterno. [ male announcer ] where did all the obama stimulus money go?

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>> schieffer: welcome back to "face the nation." we're going to start page two with more of our interview with penn state president erickson. joe paterno was a legend. he was an icon. did he stay too long? >> i would say that coach paterno's legacy, as far as i'm concerned-- and i think everyone will have to assess that personally, how they see the coach's legacy-- from my standpoint, i see the coach's contributions to the educational life of the university, and that's one of the reasons that i said i felt strongly that the paterno name should stay on our library. i think when some years pass and we get more perspective, we will also come to understand that he

had a very important role over secretary years in the-- 60 years of the educational goals and aspirations at the university, and nothing will change that part of coach paterno's legacy. >> schieffer: why did you take his statue down? >> i thought the statue had become a kind of a symbol, a kind of a lightning rod, if you will, for the controversy that has erupted over the past eight months. and i felt that it was a kind of open wound for the victims of child abuse across the nation, and in that respect, i thought it should be-- it should be removed. >> schieffer: what will you do with it? >> it's-- it's in a safe place right now. >> schieffer: kuld you ever see it coming back, being put back on display somewhere? >> we're summer not prepared to make any decision about that

issue at this time. it needs-- it needs perspective. it needs time. >> schieffer: what do you say now to these children who were molested, some of them are older now, but what does the university want to say to them? >> well, we're deeply sorry and sad, regretful that this happened at our university. we want to do the right thing. we want to help them in their healing process. but we also want to make sure that penn state becomes a national leader in this whole area of child abuse preparation and treatment. we've already taken a number of very concrete steps to do that. we're committed to being a national leader in this. and to make sure that hopefully some good in the larger perspective of things can emerge from this very tragic situation.

and of course the $60 million fine will go into an endowment, the proceeds of which will be used to assist in the prevention and treatment of abuse. >> schieffer: as difficult as this was, what is the lesson here? what happened then that can never happen again? and how do you keep that from happening? >> i believe there are several lessons here, bob, that we can learn from this. one, of course, is to be very mindful of our children and the circumstances under which they engage in activities and so forth. our children are our most important assets. i think another lesson to be learned is one of of accountability, the accountability of the moment. we need to make sure that everyone, regardless of their

position or standing, is held accountable for actions that they take. we need to make sure that all of the units across the university are really interacting and sharing information. >> schieffer: why were people afraid to talk about this? why-- how did this-- how did this happen? that's the part that i find so difficult. i mean, how could people have known about this and not tried to do something about it, or just tried to tell somebody about it. >> i think that's a very difficult question for all of us to come to grips with? when i read the grand jury preventment last november, i was horrified at what i read, and the first question that came to my mind is how could something like this have happened at a place that i thought i knew after 35 years quite well? and so i think many of us are

still asking that question. is it-- is it something, again, related to the kind of organizational structure that we have? how much of it i simply due to human-- human frailty? and not willing to step forward when they see something terrible happening? and, again, it's accountability of the moment. so we need to-- every one of us, even though we don't have clear answers to that, needs to reach into our own hearts and think about that issue very deeply, and going forward, we can't change the past, but we can look to the future, and we can-- we can hold ourselves accountable, not just to our children but to all aspects of the world we

interact with. >> schieffer: rodney erickson, the president of penn state. and joining me now to talk about this situation and the impact it's had on football in general and kind of the state of sports in america, sara ganim, who is the cnn contributor. she won the pulitzer prize for her work for the "harrisburg patriot news" on the sandusky scandal. sara, you are how old? >> 24. >> schieffer: and you've already got a pulitzer. all right. >> schieffer: bill rhoden is a columnist for the "new york times." and buzz bissinger who wrote "friday night lights," and james brown and jim roam, both of course of cbs sports. jim, i have to talk to you, you heard the president. what struck you here? what are the questions we need to be asking now? >> i think the situation about the money and how they're going to pay, not just for the fine that the n.c.a.a. imposed, but

the lawsuits that are inevitably going to come, the millions that they're already spending and will continue to spend on crisis management. how will they ensure that this doesn't come from the three key areas -- from tuition money, from taxpayer money, and from donations from people who give to penn state because they went to school there or enjoy the program? and the interesting thing about penn state is that, unlike many state schools, it's what we call in pennsylvania "state related." so it gets state money, but it doesn't have to open up its records. so we cannot-- no one, no members of the public, no journalist-- can look and see the money trail. and while president erickson is telling us what pot of money they want to take the $60 million from, we don't know where that money was going before. so how do we know that-- where that $60 million might have gone to, you know, build the new academic building or a laboratory? how are they paying for it now? how are they paying for the

other sports programs, all of them, except basketball, are dependent on penn state football. so where is that money coming from? and how do i know that my tax money isn't going to that? >> schieffer: bill, let me just start with you and go around the table, short question-- did the n.c.a.a. impose the right penalty here? should it have been harsher? >> absolutely not. they should not be playing football. the fact that they are playing football is one of the greatest abdications, moral abdications in the history of the n.c.a.a. there's no way they should be playing football. >> schieffer: jim rome out there in l.a., what's your take? >> bob, i think they have a right. i think the n.c.a.a. had to come down the way they did. we're talking about the biggest scandal ever. we're talking about a coach who knew, athletic director, president and vice president knew they had a pedophile in their buildings. they had to do something. i think they got it right. i think it was certainly

punitive, i think it was just, and i think they had no other opportunity or no other choice to do what they did. i think they got it. >> schieffer: buzz bissinger? >> given the past conduct of the n.c.a.a., when they never do anything, i think the singleses are appropriate and correct? i think it will have a severe impact on the penn state football program. when you lose scholarships like that, when you're restricts and not going to bowl games. kids-- it's a business, and kids and their parents are going to say, "don't go to penn state." >> schieffer: my daughter went to s.m.u., the year they got the death penalty, no football, they cancelted all the games want first year, cancelledly the visiting games the next year pim remember going the homecoming soccer game, and it wasn't just quite the same. s.m.u. didn't do nearly what happened at penn state? do you think the penalty was right? >> i think on balance it was fair. i think it was punitive enough. there's no such thing as a penalty that will be fair with all parties involved, bob.

the current athletes, they had nothing to do with it. i hate the fact that they're going to be impacted, but there's always collateral damage when there's a punitive measure put in place and i think the right thing was done. for me, it begins and it ends with the young people who were raped and abused. that says it all to me. >> schieffer: obviously, something like this can't happen without consequences, but what the people in fenn state argue, some of them, and in the community, as well as some members of the board, is that the wrong people are being punished. the guys that did this have been fired. they've been sent on their way. and it's the football players, it's the fans who are being punished here, bill. >> oh, you have to stop-- that's the whole problem. the only innocent people in this whole drama are the kids who were raped. you know, i don't know if anybody has been the victim of abuse. but that's something that's forever. they're the only people-- and the fact that-- if you listen to this whole thing, the only thing that penn state wanted, the only thing it would listen to is,

"let us play football." that's the only thing they wanted. let us met game. let us in the game. as long as we're in the game, we can make a little money here, make money-- if you shut it down, you're sending a message that resonates to california, down to alabama, up to the northeast. but by letting them play ball, that's the only thing they want to do-- "just let us play ball." >> the competitiveness of the program is going to be impacted by the reduction in scholarships for sure. no bowl money revenue will be disseminated at all. $60 million is a poety significant hit, especially to the second biggest employer in the state, being the penn state university, period. so i think it was very punitive for sure. i do hate that the kids won't be able to pursue. but you know what? that's life. i mean, sara said it back in the green room. there's nothing fair about that, but when you're talking about a situation that is as egregious as this, the right thing was done. >> schieffer: well, sara, talk to us a little bit. as a reporter, i'm interested, this must have been a very tough

story to get. >> well, you know, it's funny you say, that actually. because when you talk about-- a lot of people have been talking about the culture at penn state. as reporters at penn state college it was a joke. we used to call penn state "the kremlin." it was inpenetrable. the football program was incredibly secret, and when you talk about what happened and looking back in hindsight, these were things that were not real really-- these were known things. it was very difficult to get information out of penn state, out of the administration, out of the football program. it was just impossible. and so thatue know, that definitely carried through. and i, in some ways, i think president erickson recognizes that and is trying to make things more open be but i do think penn state has a long way to go before we really know what's going on. >> schieffer: what did you do? did you get a tip? how did you find out about this? >> yeah, i got a tip. it was kind of dumb luck in a

way. i asked a source, anything else going on?" and he said, "h.d., jerry sandusky has been accused." this is the point where it's just one child, one boy. and six weeks later that person called me back and said, "remember that thing i told you. never mind, it's not true." and that was the beginning of three years before we really could get a solid story to print. >> you know, and there are still a lot of unanswered questions. i have a lot of questions about the conduct of governor tom corbin, why this investigation took so long. why was a grand jury impaneled, as opposed to arresting mr. sandusky and then you could have continued the investigation? i mean, he put other children at risk. this investigation took three years. he had one investigator-- he says two-- on the case for the first two years. a narcotics officer, and by the way, he was an attorney general running for governor, and you have to ask the question, was he

scared of offending the penn state base, which is enormous in the state of. >> schieffer: jim rome, i asked president erickson, what about joe paterno, did he stay too long? i saw him forthcoming but he clearly dodged that question. he said people have to make up their own judgment about whether he stayed too long? is that what happened here? is this an icon who just should have retired or been retired some years ago? >> yeah, bork i don't think it's a matter of him staying too long. i think it's the matter of a man who had the opportunity to do the right thing and did not do so. the one thing we could always believe in in college sports was joe paterno, a man of integrity, a man of virtue, a man who would do the right thing given the opportunity at the right time and that's not what he did. a lot of penn state fans are upset about this, but the fact of the matter is, this is his legacy. this happened under his watch. he knew about it, the a.g. new queue about it and the president knew about it.

this is what he's going to be remembered for more than anything else, not that he stayed too long but had the chance to do the right thing and didn't do it. >> tato me galls me the most you have adults in the position of responsibility, to be carrying the banner for honesty and integrity and transparency and they failed miserably in that. while this is the most egregious situation i've seen, the tail wagging the dog, the athletic department wagging the dog at a big-time athletic program is nothing novel. i'm just hopeful-- i'm not very confident that it's going to happen-- that there will be a significant change. this isn't the only place where the tail is wagging the dog. bill big-time college athletics is viewed through prism of and runs the show. >> schieffer: we're going to keep talking. we're going to take a break and make a little money for "face the nation."

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let's build a smarter planet. >> schieffer: we all seem pretty much in agreement coach paterno had to know something about this. do you think he was just out of it, though? was this a fellow who had a great career but probably didn't really know what was going on? because it seems to me like the self-perpepuation of the joe paterno legend became even larger than the football program at penn state? >> i would say it was larger than penn state. joe paterno and penn state were basically synonymous. and i think-- when i talked to students there-- and i've been talking to students a lot-- i was a student not that long ago at penn state-- one thing i hope people learn from this is this was almost idol worship at this point to joe paterno. and it's just not fair to the

fans. it's not fair to the person, to joe, that we hold people to such a high standard on such a pod stall to erect a larger-than-life statue to someone who is still alive on campus in front of the place they work. can you imagine going into work every day with a 10-foot statue of yourself? >> i'd like that. >> nick sabein goes down whatever it's called, and there's a big statue of nick sabein because he know won a national championship. >> look, you know, we can use joe paterno's age as an excuse. joe paterno was a dictator. it took five years and an appeal to the state supreme court to get his salary, which was public. he knew something was going on in 1998. he definitely, according to the freeh, had an impact on the decision that was made in 2001. at the end of the day, jerry sandusky was a member of the football mafia family, and as long as you don't rat, you're a member of the family, and what

is the most troublesome in all those e-mails we've read, not one word about any of the victims. >> i don't begrudge the success of any college coach who wins and wins consistently and does it right. i don't know all the story there. time and distance from it will tell the full story. there's a truth that says that which was done in the dark will ultimately come to the light. i don't begrudge the success. it's the degree to which we defy them and they're sincealated, there's no firewall between it's university is supposed to be running the show and that doesn't happy handicap many places. >> schieffer: let me bring jim rome back in to this. we know what happened at penn state. do we have the same kind of situation at other big universities around the country because football has suddenly become very, very big business-- not suddenly but is. >> number one, it will never be like it was at penn state because we're talking about somebody that was there for 40-plus years and a very small community that really derives a lot of its identity, both from the university and the football

program. we can never be like it was at penn state with joe paterno. that was an anomaly in and of itself. i would say-- and nick sabein's name camum-- you can't tell me nick sabein is any less powerful now. to me that is what is troubling. this is not going to change anything at all. the only thing this will change is the way joe paterno was seen, the way the football team looks on the field. but it's not going to change anything nationally because the stakes are always going to be what they're going to be and people will always want to win and that's not going to change. i don't think anything will change. >> do you think les miles has less power than the president at l.s.u.? >> none of them do. >> i want to make it clear about this whole thing. what we talk about here-- and you're talking about the mafia-- we're talking about the death penalty. the n.c.a.a. itself should get the death penalty. they slapped them around publicly, $60 million-- usc we

were slapping around a couple of years ago, and u.s.c. may get one of penn state's guys. this business, the deeper you get into it, is incestuous and it's coming to the point it's immoral. look what we're doing here. we're punishing a moral trespass with money. we're saying, "okay, you--" >> you are punishing with sanctions. you are punishing with singles sanctions-- >> still money. >> more than u.s.c.-- yes, it was a p.r. move for the n.c.a.a. will it change the culture of football? no. should players be paid? of course. but we have this myth, this ridiculous myth was whole man that never existed, that was perpetuated by walter camp and grants lin rice. it's a discraig, and the n.c.a.a. is a disgrace and part of it was a p.r. move. >> schieffer: how many of the football players -- they can can transfer to other schools without losing any eligibility. what's your take? do you think many of them will? >> i think many of them are going to stay. >> schieffer: do you? >> out of loyalty. and there's really only one--

correct me if i'm wrong, guys-- there's only one who has been openly talking. and most of the players at big 10 media day said, "look, we're sticking together. this is a decision we're making as a team. we're going to play this season." and i think a lot of thom are standing behind bill o'brien. it's the same kind of reaction in the community. people are saying, "i don't care how much a football ticket, is i'm going to go to the games. even if i wasn't going to go to the games otherwise to show, hey, you can't beat me down. i'm going--" >> schieffer: we're about to go out of time. i want to go back to what buzz said. should we be paying our college athletes? >> no, i don't believe in that. i do believe-- >> schieffer: because they're the only ones not making a whole bunch of money out of this. >> that's the rule of the n.c.a.a. the only people who make money are the adults. i do believe-- i do believe that there is something to be said for going to these great universities and getting an education. >> they don't go there for that.

they don't have the time. they don't have the wherewithall. >> i think a lot do. >> i think very few do. and cam newton probably made tens of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars and gets nothing. it isn't fair. it is a form of indenturement. >> schieffer: all right, well, i'm sorry, that is where-- we'll probably continue this conversation as we go off the air, but we have to end this part of it. we'll be back in a moment. they were coming. we knew it.

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>> schieffer: even with a full hour of "face the nation," this morning when jan crawford got that interview with mitt romney, we just didn't have enough time for our interview with sandra day o'connor. we want to apologize to justice o'connor and we will have that interview on next week. thanks. we'll see you in a minute.

>> schieffer: that's it for us today. we'll be back here same time, same place, next week. see you then. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

next on "this week in defense news," air force chief of staff general norton schwartz a sequesio