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.
No sale. Cosby will die in disgrace. Hopefully soon.
Those “rises” are what got him in trouble.
Why would you waste one milligram of ink trying to defend Bill Cosby, a subhuman bag of skin filled with dog-squeeze? This article makes me sick.
While the article’s author claims Cosby’s non-drinking conflicts with the women’s claims, the claims I have read gave accounts of Cosby serving them alcohol but not partaking himself.
One reason is viagra
The disgrace is your absolute hate without any evidence whatsoever. You sound like someone with a rope and a tree and an inbred giggle.
See my post #7. Then move to China where you can be a guard at a death camp - they don't have any use for trials either.
The creep is dirty.
Go buy a ticket to your hero’s next show.
A carefully organized briefcase full of pills to drug women will be how Mr. Cosby will be remembered. A product of the corrupt Hollywood culture.
The warm and doting father Cliff Huxtable with the snazzy sweaters was always just a character that existed only in the heads of the NBC writers.
He first uses Allred representing the newest ones, (or is it actually the newest “one”?), but then he also uses the fact that Cosby is challengin Huth.
Well Huth is the “newest” one, and the one that Allred is representing.
It looks like he was really padding his defense of Cosby by double dipping.
Then he writes this about Cosby being accused of being a serial rapist for at least 40 years. “”This reporter is pretty well convinced that there is at least something to at least some of the charges against Cosby.”” and then declares that the guy is just so charming and likable though....
I sure don’t regret canceling my subscription to the National Review back in 2008.
I don’t believe in anything that Cosby and his high priced legal defense team has done from day one; regarding these rape and abuse claims; beginning in 2005. Actually, I read about allegations before the 2005 case went into court. There is a time and a place to see when a person subjectively must come to terms that the false narrative (being a great character figure), is not longer a role model and Never was. He’s just a false prophet selling some fraudulent image all packaged. I am not buying any of his sale. I hope that he never hurts anyone again (physically or emotionally). Once, he gives the lies up, the true victims can begin to heal.
Flush your brain then look at the evidence.
The creep is dirty.
What evidence? DNA? Eyewitness?
Women lie all the time about rape.
All Cosby is guilty of is being a Democrat.
“”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.””
Because the society that we live in, can be so easily persuaded and duped into whatever the power structure or it’s friend to be... wants.. a lie / the narrative.. pay to make it happen. The media destroys the good and protects what they want to protect (which is usually not good). They have known for many years that he was involved in these allegations, they gave him pass; it’s not the media just suddenly turning on him, that’s for certain.
Is he goi g to run for senate in Massachusettes as democrat.
Flush your dirty mouth and then show me the evidence.
Not a hero. Just innocent until proven guilty. It's an American thing - you wouldn't understand.
For example, I have concluded that legally-acquitted OJ Simpson murdered two people.
It's a thinking thing - you wouldn't understand.
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