Joe Paterno, fired tonight by the Penn State board of trustees.

He had to be. No coming back from this. The scandal surrounding the alleged child-molestation incidents involving the former Penn State defensive coordinator … well, “radioactive” was the first word that came to mind and it still seems best.

All Penn State could do was clean house, and that included the football coach, the guy with 409 career victories whose promise to retire at the end of the season (perhaps five more games) was not nearly good enough.

The people I am most embarrassed for, at this moment?

It’s not Paterno. It’s not the Penn State president. It’s not Jerry Sandusky, alleged child-molester. (“Embarrassment” is not the proper word for Sandusky.)

It’s the Penn State students who are demonstrating/protesting over Paterno’s ousting.

I recognize that college students, in particular, feel the tug of “taking it to the streets” — making sure The Man understands what they are feeling or even demanding. It’s cliche, but it happens. I get it. A rite of passage and all.

Paterno, however, is not coming back, nor should he. The students are involved in a pointless exercise, unless their goals are simply “to show that we’re mad and unhappy.” If that’s all you’re trying to convey: Mission accomplished. If you really do mean “bring back Joe Paterno” … well, then you’re seriously misguided.

OK, brace yourself for another round of “in my day” … but in my day, college students demonstrated all the time. It was just another day at school. Big demonstrations about the war in Vietnam. Demonstrations about race relations. About farm workers. Back then, we even had a Hard Left on campus, and the Communists would demonstrate now and then, though they never got as many people as they wanted, much to my amusement.

Students in Egypt and other Arab countries were key in rising up against autocratic leaders this year. That makes sense, too.

But going out to demonstrate against Joe Paterno’s dismissal — when removing him as coach was the unavoidable Next Step to ending Penn State’s national humiliation? Really? You want to be remembered for “marching for JoePa?”

The “occupy Wall Street” people make more sense than that.

PSU kids: Go back inside. Have another beer. Ask yourself why Joe Paterno allowed years and years of creepy stuff to go on around your program. And then turn to something truly serious. Like, say, the responsibilities of observers to report evil when they see it.

Discuss.