Betrayals of trust

 Larry Nassar is alive and behind bars, at least one of which frankly amazes these days. Casual violence being sort of an American pastime -- and the ability to arm oneself like the 82nd Airborne not only easy-peasy but apparently a sacrament -- one wonders how Nassar, serial abuser of young gymnasts and general sicko, is still breathing air.

I guess it's a testament to the discipline and restraint of world-class athletes that Nassar didn't wind up in the trunk of a car with two taps in the back of his head. And I guess it's a testament to the same that a whole pile of others didn't wind up the same way, given the justifiable fury so many of Nassar's victims must be feeling at how badly their trust was betrayed by so many.

Nassar. Coaches and other officials in the gymnastics community. Michigan State University, which enabled and protected Nassar against a cascade of complaints across two decades. And now ...

And now, the FBI.

According to a report just released by the Department of Justice's attorney general, the Fibbies sat on the Nassar business for a year while Nassar continued to abuse the girls and young women in his dubious care. They waited five weeks after receiving the initial allegations to conduct interviews, then decided not to share their information with other law enforcement agencies.

It finally took a separate complaint made to Michigan police to get Nassar in bracelets. By that time he'd sexually assaulted more than 70 additional women and girls. 

More than 70 women and girls.

Yessir. That'd make me homicidal if I were, say, Rachael Denhollander or McKayla Maroney or Simone Biles or any of the other gymnasts, elite and otherwise, Nassar abused. For two decades no one took them seriously -- two decades -- and then, in the endgame, not even the FBI did, either.

Not exactly an Eliot Ness kind of moment for the Fibbies, if you catch my drift.

But then, they were just little girls, physically and in a lot of cases otherwise. And Larry Nassar was a world-renowned medical professional who'd been working with gymnasts at Michigan State and on the national level for years. So it was pretty much "Be nice little girls and go back to your flipping and tumbling and what-not, and let the grownups make the grownup decisions."

And then the FBI figuratively pats them on the head, too? And the deposed president of Michigan State (Lou Anna Simon),  whose university gave Nassar shelter all those years, has the monumental gall to whine about how SHE was being treated on her way out the door?

They're all lucky one of the nice little girls didn't drop a dime on Clemenza or Luca Brasi. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.