The biggest American story of the moment, the one that has touched raw nerves nationally and inspired genuine anger regardless of politics or religion, is not about Herman Cain, the Republican presidential candidate, and his relationships with women, nor even Governor Rick Perry’s inability to remember which three government departments he would abolish should he inhabit the White House.

But it does involve sex, of the deeply perverted kind, and it has brought down one of the US’s sporting icons and the president of one of its more?reputable universities. Both were felled by those famous Watergate-era questions, to which forgetfulness is no defence, of what they knew, when they knew it and what did they do about it.

Joe Paterno, known as Joe Pa, is 84 and had been, until late on Wednesday, the football coach of Penn State University for the past?46 years, during which time he has accumulated national championships and more victories than any other top college coach in history.