Roethlisberger Deserves Six Games; Steelers Should Deal Him

To read accounts from the Georgia backwoods, Ben Roethlisberger's penis was ready, waiting and removed from his pants when he approached his 20-year-old accuser by the bar bathroom. I've yet to hear any denials from the quarterback's camp, maybe because few would believe him if he did protest, and I'm guessing most Americans are so sick of his behavior that they don't care he wasn't charged with a crime. This is a man-child who has an additional sexual assault case pending in Nevada, a reckless daredevil who wasn't wearing a helmet when he crashed a motorcycle, a dense dolt with a Superman complex who thinks he can suffer numerous concussions and keep playing football.

He has lost all trust, all credibility, all touch with his moral compass.

"She continued to say she didn't want to have sex, but he kept saying, 'No, it's OK,' " said one of the accuser's sorority sisters, Ann Marie Lubatti, in an interview with investigators. Lubatti claimed she was rebuffed by his bodyguards when she asked if she could remove the accuser from the bathroom scene -- and that her friend told her that Roethlisberger had "walked back to where she was with his penis already out of his pants. She told him that they shouldn't be doing this and that it wasn't right."

These are sordid allegations that could ruin a man's reputation forever, right? And yet, somehow, Roethlisberger has remained non-contentious, resigned to his fate, as if admitting guilt via his silence.

So we should laud Roger Goodell, the perpetually busy commissioner of the NFL, for carefully examining the voluminous information -- including eye-opening statements from witnesses -- and suspending Roethlisberger for the first six games of the 2010 regular season. It was paramount that Goodell not show favoritism in his edict, with so many racial ramifications in the air had he protected a white quarterback and $102-million marketing tool after using the league's personal conduct policy to suspend so many black players. Clearly, he has weighed in with appropriate punishment here. I'd prefer there wasn't a sliding scale that gives Roethlisberger a chance to reduce the suspension to four games with good behavior in the coming weeks; if Goodell believes in the terms, he should stand by them and not be wishy-washy. But when it would have been convenient to fold behind a hasn't-been-charged-or-convicted excuse, the boss boldly reminded Roethlisberger and all NFL players that they represent a league and its reputation and cannot act like animals in public.