Posted on 12/09/2014 6:58:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Things continue to look grim for Bill Cosby still more women have emerged to accuse him of sexual assault; his Hollywood-and-Highland star on the Walk of Fame has been repeatedly defaced; and even the U.S. Navy has stripped him of an honorary C.P.O. rating but there are signs that the veteran entertainers luck may be turning around.
For starters, the attorney repping the new accusers is Gloria Allred, the most shameless slip-and-fall lawyer in Los Angeles and a litigator whose presence in any case is a virtual guarantee that it is meritless. (Allred in this case has taken even less care than usual to disguise the dollar signs in her irises.)
Cosby himself has also started to fire back at his accusers, filing court papers against his alleged Playboy Mansion victim Judy Huth, whom Cosby accuses of having tried to blackmail him for years. Among other things, the filing declares that the expert word-slurrer is in fact a lifelong teetotaler, which if true is interesting given how many of the accusations (that Cosby drugged and raped numerous women in incidents dating from 1966 through 2004) center around alcoholic beverages. The filing also gives a fuller response from the shrinking Cosby camp than has been heard so far.
But its also notable that plenty of people have not stopped believing in Cos. Although most of his public appearances have been canceled, the cancelations have come from above, not below. The Tarrytown Music Hall last week announced that the decision to postpone two scheduled Saturday performances had been made by Bill Cosby, in consultation with the promoter. A representative of the Music Hall tells National Review Online that both shows were sold out.
One recent show that did go on suggests Cosby still enjoys a substantial reservoir of public goodwill. The longtime television and standup fixture got a standing ovation and had the audience roaring during a late-November routine in Melbourne, Fla.
Nor is it only self-selecting audiences who still hold a torch for the 77-year-old entertainer. BETs Centric channel will be showing two episodes of The Cosby Show Tuesday night, including Wheres Rudy (Theo and Vanessa are charged with watching Rudy, while Clair enters her squash in a contest at the mall). Magic Johnsons ASPiRE network is giving heavy rotation to Cosbys first two scripted television series: I Spy, a secret-agent buddy dramedy pairing him with the late Robert Culp, and The Bill Cosby Show, in which he plays high-school teacher Chet Kinkaid. ASPiRE even runs interstitials touting the comedians scrupulously non-blue material. They say comedy is hard, and clean comedy is nearly impossible, the house ad declares. Not if youre Bill Cosby.
ASPiRE is available in 20.6 million households, and Centric, according to Entertainment Weekly, is available in 51 million. Centric did not respond to queries about the series ratings and the decision to keep running Cosby programming. An ASPiRE spokeswoman tells National Review Online and other media only that the series are currently running on the network. We are closely monitoring the situation.
While many experts have declared Cosbys career over, a precedent from less than ten years ago suggests otherwise. In 2005, many years of official and unofficial allegations of child sexual molestation against Michael Jackson during which the king of pop reportedly spent more than $35 million on settlements with at least 24 accusers culminated in a criminal trial in which he was charged with 14 counts related to child molestation and intoxicating a minor. Although Jackson was acquitted on all charges, several witnesses for the defense subsequently said the singer had sexually abused them and coached them to conceal incriminating stories. Unlike courts of criminal law, courts of public opinion are not bound to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and yet the public remained committed to Michael Jackson until the end. Though he probably did not suspect it at the time, Jackson (presumably like Cosby, who is quite old and has health problems) did not have long to live at the time of his trial. Yet when he died in 2009 it was in the midst of a popular and high-profile comeback. Rather than hailing quack doctor Conrad Murray as a hero who inadvertently protected the children of California when the courts couldnt, the public cried out for Murray to be punished for having administered a lethal drug cocktail to a beloved national treasure, friend of popes and presidents. (Murray was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter.)
Though none of the entertainment-industry sources contacted for this article would comment on the potential upside of continuing to serve the market for Cosby fans, its hard to escape the feeling that theres a major business opportunity being left on the table. Simon & Schuster has declined to respond to queries by phone, e-mail, and fax, but Mark Whitakers biography Cosby: His Life and Times has reportedly been a sales disappointment, selling about 6,000 copies since its September publication, according to Neilsen Soundscan, and currently showing up at number 24,853 at Amazon. But what if the widely decried failing of Whitakers book that it lacks any mention at all of the multiple rape accusations against its hero were actually a selling point? The publishing industry is not brimming with innovative thinkers, but it doesnt take the business vision of Jeff Bezos to see the potential in a marketing campaign emphasizing the books family-friendliness, with bookstore displays along these lines: Say No to the Haters: If you still love Cos, buy this book.
Hollywood, along with the history of the Democratic partycontrolled South, has etched in the American memory an image of the torch-wielding mob demanding summary punishment of suspects. But often it is the masses who are determined not to believe the frenzies whipped up for them by the coastal media. As the apparent collapse of Rolling Stones University of Virginia rape story suggests, that skepticism is often well founded. But sometimes it comes from the less rational regions of the heart where love and fandom reside. The American people have been willing to forget credible rape charges against other notable men, including one rape accusation against a president of the United States.
In the few venues where it is still on display, Cosbys charisma which was always rooted as much in his amiability as in the actual funniness of his comedy is not to be underestimated. This reporter is pretty well convinced that there is at least something to at least some of the charges against Cosby. But watching a few of ASPiREs Bill Cosby Show reruns (including one in which the great Don Knotts plays a repo man trying to get Chets TV, and another in which Chet and his buddies argue over whether Josh Gibson could have caught a baseball thrown from the top of the Washington Monument) was like a presentation of forensic evidence leading to an inescapable conclusion: Theres no way somebody as likeable as Cos could have done all those terrible things. Its a stupid reaction, but then gut feelings dont come from the brain.
One common element linking the Rolling Stone debacle, the Cosby allegations, and Lena Dunhams apparent libel of a campus Republican she describes in specifically Ron Burgundy terms has been an assumption that civilization and civilized behavior began just a few years ago, that all these sexcapades took place in a benighted era among people who lacked our fine powers of discernment. (Not for nothing has Mad Men become the go-to pop reference for no-talent hacks from the White House to the Washington Post.) This is clearly false. The Cosby allegations, and the horror of them, were discussed widely nearly ten years ago. (As is often the case, it was Tina Fey who pointed the way for America in an eerily perceptive Saturday Night Live sketch.) That the charges fell out of popular discussion was not a sign that the nations consciousness hadnt been sufficiently raised. It was a sign that people really love Bill Cosby, to the point of not wanting to believe, or at least not wanting to recall, bad things about him. Some of that trust has slipped recently, but surprisingly little, given the extensive coverage of the accusations. According to a company that purports to measure celebrities perceived trustworthiness, Cosbys trust rating fell from 76.3 in March of last year to 57.1 last month. Thats a steep slide, but it also means that as of March 2013, nine years after the first charges against him were made, Cosby was still the third most trusted celebrity in America.
Its more than possible he could get back up there again. Celebrities and politicians fall on the basis of public frenzies, but they also rise on them.
Tim Cavanaugh is news editor of National Review Online.
27 witnesses establishing this greasy slug as a serial abuser of women.
Ditto.
If you ask someone a question and that person answers it, how do you believe the answer? If you ask your spouse where he/she was the past hour and he/she answers you, how do you believe him/her? Under your rationale you are not allowed to believe someone unless that person is under oath in a court of law. I’m just wondering how you function in society with your rules. And why do you bother having relationships with people when you don’t believe anything people tell you and the people you tell things to don’t believe anything you tell them? Just curious.
If all of these women are in it for the money, why aren’t they picking on someone with more money? Bill Cosby is only a multi-millionaire. Why didn’t they pick on a billionaire if their motive is money?
Many of these women are not asking for anything. Many of them have said they had more to lose if they came forward and did not want the attention. What about them?
What does “rise again” mean - “The new Huxable Show?” PLUEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!!
1.) He has the identical MO each time, ensnaring naïve protégées to his hotel with promises of work.
2.) The protégées all tell the same story.
3.) They even look alike, a sign of his taste in victims.
4.) Etc., etc.
I don’t mind stopping my sub. After he(Buckley) turned it over to the pretty boys it has nothing worth while to say...Way before you used this latest pile of doggy do do hit the fan
many if not most of the current witnesses publicly or privately arrayed against cosby have stated upfront that they are not interested in money.
so out of the current women coming forward, it seems at least so far that only about 4 are interested in money.
when i consider lawsuits being filed, i consider all the potential angles. a lawsuit is a big thing. they are filed in civil courts of unlimited jurisdiction in terms of renumeration for damages. if you file, and you lie, you could imho open yourself to a countersuit in unlimited jurisdiction in which you could essentially lose your home, your savings, your car, and the shirt off of your back, especially when facing a deep pockets opposing party such as Cosby.
the court system is to some degree familiar with the predicament of young women who have for whatever reasons not had the foresight to take rape kit evidence, etc. the court juries rely on circumstantial evidence in those cases. i get the impression that direct evidence is not strictly needed to convict or find liable. in civil court, a preponderance of circumstantial evidence will do. there are two types of courts and two types of evidence. and sometimes there are situations (not just limited to rape) in which direct evidence was for whatever reason not gathered. people on fr perhaps need to realize how the courts work. they seem to tend to conflate civil with criminal courts, and direct evidence with circumstantial evidence. it makes for very bombastic sweeping and overly simplified arguments, but not reasonable arguments.
IMHO, IANAL
they wear gooogle glasses or hat mounted gopros 24/7 and upload to NAS cloud storage every day?
should be useful. honey, actually you did not say skim milk two days ago, so i was actually free to get low fat milk. and i can prove it.
jk
I don’t believe I ever mentioned money....your hearing something that was not set. You must have money on your mind.
Almost sounds as if a prediction of a break in public opinion along racial lines, with whoopi and magic at the front lines.
hmm, maybe cosby could sue some of the venues that drop him (NBC?) for million$ for racial discrimination!
maybe the white women are all in on the conspiracy, and are all in line to get a substantial under the table payoff once cosby’s anti discrimination suits are settled!!
race, the final frontier... :-(
to continue a thought, a lawsuit might in theory be filed for more than financial reasons (eg to make a point in the court of public opinion). tangible real assets in damages are just a nominal but essential requirement of standing to file a lawsuit. if tangible real assets in damages is not mentioned in a lawsuit, then the lawsuit can be dismissed for lack of standing, and so all competently filed lawsuits mention monetary damages or equivalent, whether or not that is the ultimate goal of the plaintiff(s). And it is not necessarily the ultimate goal of the plaintiffs— just the nominal stated goal in the initial complaint filing which initiates a lawsuit in civil court.
IANAL
“Beloved”? By whom? His fellow honky-hating Obama worshipers?
You will have to ask the females involved. Since I know none of them...or their motivation
“Oh look, another one who never heard of a famous person paying off a nuisance suit to keep the tabloids from going crazy over the publicity it would take to clear their name in court.”
So now you think that rape is a “nuisance!” These women may have lost the ability to sue him in criminal court, but you can bet they will be there in force in civil court. Just hope they do it in Nevada so Cosby can share a cell with OJ Simpson out at the Nevada State Penitentiary in the middle of nowhere east of Lovelock. I can tell you that “the view” out there is really boring. All there is to see if you are on the north side, is the cars going by a mile distant on I88. A fitting “end” for Cosby.
Yep, it quickly moved from conservatism after Buckley.
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