<p>rhandco, I clicked on your link, but can you tell me which part of it I should read? What part in your mind is “fuzzy”?</p>
<p>“Cosby, 77, has never faced a judge or jury, let alone been convicted, over the allegations. But it’s clear many people have already tried him in their minds.”</p>
<p>If the statute of limitations has ran out, the public shaming and “conviction” can restore at least some justice to the victims. When there is sooo much smoke, there is a very, very big probabilty that there was a rather large fire. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what’s fuzzy about a man having a sex/groping/ forcing oral sex on an unconscious woman.</p>
<p>DH and I were talking about this Friday. He said in situations like this he would have to personally know the accusers to make a decision. I said that is true, in perhaps a single case. But for all sorts of women to start crawling out, and since the statue of limitations is in effect, what purpose does it serve…plus they have the same story. He agreed because of that it seems less likely that he is innocent.</p>
<p>I think he did it and it bums me out. I used to listen to his comedy records growing up, and even when I was an adult and would just crack up. I also feel very sorry for his wife.</p>
<p>I’m not quite convinced the wife didn’t know about it. I think she just looked the other way and ignored it all.</p>
<p>I saw an interview clip with Cosby and his wife. The reporter brought up the subject currently in the media. Cosby, stopped the interview and asked that that part not be aired. Cosby’s wife just seemed to sit there and smile. I don’t know, but something makes me feel she always knew, but kept quiet to stay in the marriage. </p>
<p>Right now I have a hard time feeling sorry for her.</p>
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<p>The Daily News ran a story from an NBC employee who says he was Cosby’s “fixer” who stood guard on the door and handed payments to women and girls. He says Cosby had a relationship with a modeling agency who’d bring him girls as young as 16, that Cosby would make his selection and tell this guy to guard the door. He said it was clear what was going on.</p>
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<p>Wow, this is just ewwwwwww. That agency is just as guilty and should face some charges.</p>
<p>Just today, I’m reading that a co-star in an educational show says he was drugging her and maybe assaulting her (she was unconscious, so can’t be sure what happened) when she was 15-19. He paid for college.</p>
<p>Selective blindness and deafness to major flaws in a very rich and powerful spouse is sadly very common. I feel for these poor young girls who were brought to Cosby by their modeling agency and left there as sacrifices or “gifts” – teens drugged and raped --so awful. I am sorry, don’t feel nearly as much sympathy for the wife who benefitted from his power and wealth. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine she wouldn’t notice all that money flying out the door either.</p>
<p>She probably just got “her allowance” and no info or says about the rest of HIS money or assets. There’s no info she was ever present when he was drugging and rapiing/assaulting (unlike Sandusky), so I think unless he also did this or some variation to her (which is a real possibility) she may not have known all of what he was up to, tho she must have heard some rumors. </p>
<p>Once a girl or woman is drugged, she is unable to give consent. So any sexual activities that follow are, by definition, rape. </p>
<p>No wonder rape victims are reluctant to go public.</p>
<p>I can think of at least two instances when I was assaulted – one when I was 14 and one when I was 22 – that I never told anyone about. I assumed at the times that it was shameful, so I kept my mouth shut. </p>
<p>Clarification: In the first instance I was “merely” fondled and groped, and in the second instance the fellow tried to force himself on me but I resisted and he did take “no” for an answer.</p>
<p>It’s worse every day. There’s another woman telling CNN that she never considered reporting him because she drank two drinks with him when she got sick and confused and he was taking off his pants. She threw up and he left. Nothing else happened. This was in the 1960’s when he was on I Spy. She was one of the Jane Does in the civil case that was settled in 2006. There must be hundreds of these stories out there.</p>
<p>There’s an article in the NYTimes that is headlined “Cosby’s Media Enablers” indicating that some in the media including the author knew what Cosby was doing and said nothing. I couldn’t read the article because it’s behind a pay wall. </p>
<p>I read the NYTimes article. The author says, not that people in the media <em>knew</em> the accusations were true, but that they were reluctant to report or pursue the existing allegations. He was offered an assignment to interview Cosby for an airline magazine. He writes:</p>
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<p>He indicts himself and other journalists for cowardice in not pursuing the allegations. </p>
<p>The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates has a similar perspective. Coates wrote a long article about Cosby in 2008. At the time, he says, he concluded Cosby was a rapist, but he did not offer that opinion in an article filled with opinions about Cosby. Now he writes:</p>
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<p>^^ The article is stunning. The author wrote a short piece on Cosby for an airline magazine. He discusses his own piece as well as a number of other articles and books, all of which ignored the rape allegations. A few excerpts: </p>
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<p>Amid the public revulsion at the news that Bill Cosby, a trailblazing black entertainer, allegedly victimized women in serial fashion throughout his career, the response from those in the know has been: What took so long?</p>
<p>What took so long is that those in the know kept it mostly to themselves. No one wanted to disturb the Natural Order of Things, which was that Mr. Cosby was beloved; he was as generous and paternal as his public image; and that his approach to life and work represented a bracing corrective to the coarse, self-defeating urban black ethos.</p>
<p>Only the first of those things was actually true.
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Mr. Coates recently expressed regret on The Atlantic website that he did not press harder on Mr. Cosby’s conflicted past. In the course of his reporting, he said he came to the conclusion that “Bill Cosby was a rapist.”</p>
<p>He added: “I regret not saying what I thought of the accusations, and then pursuing those thoughts. I regret it because the lack of pursuit puts me in league with people who either looked away, or did not look hard enough.”
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I paid for that in other ways. The interview was deeply unpleasant, with a windy, obstreperous subject who answered almost every question in 15-minute soliloquies, many of which were not particularly useful.</p>
<p>After an hour of this, I mentioned that the interview was turning out to be all A. and no Q. He paused, finally.</p>
<p>“Young man, are you interested in hearing what I have to say or not?” he said. “If not, we can end this interview right now.”</p>
<p>Mr. Cosby was not interested in being questioned, in being challenged in any way. By this point in his career, he was surrounded by ferocious lawyers and stalwart enablers and he felt it was beneath him to submit to the queries of mere mortals.</p>
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<p>Bill Cosby is indeed a loathsome man. (Since this is a college forum) I hope that the colleges and universities that gave him honorary degrees will retract them. </p>
<p>“Cosby’s wife just seemed to sit there and smile. I don’t know, but something makes me feel she always knew, but kept quiet to stay in the marriage.”</p>
<p>Whose to say he hasn’t drugged her as well.</p>
<p>^^^When money talks, wives don’t walk. Or something like that. </p>
<p>Absolute power corrupts absolutely–It is illustrated again and again. News reports are that an accuser wants to have a class action civil suit with other victims against Cosby. Interesting to see if other accusers vs other people in power may decide to also end their silence. </p>