The Cosby accusations: a familiar trajectory
Now the University of Massachusetts has decided to rid itself of its association with Bill Cosby which goes back decades:
A university spokesman told the Boston Globe on Wednesday university officials had asked Cosby to step down as an honorary co-chairman of their $300 million fundraising campaign and Cosby agreed.
Cosby received a master’s degree and a doctorate in education from the university. He and his wife donated several hundred thousand dollars to the university.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a letter to the university urging it to cut ties with Cosby.
I’ve already said my piece on Cosby’s guilt or innocence. I have nothing to add except to reiterate my position, which is that we don’t know and at this point we cannot know the truth or falsehood of the allegations. I don’t care how many women pile on with similar stories; it’s the quality and timing of their stories that matter. Yes, women (and men, and children) sometimes lie, and not all that infrequently either. They also often tell the truth. However, I would be more convinced it was the truth if the people telling these rape stories were coming forward before the other stories had been publicized. And I would be more convinced of the stories’ truth if there was no payoff in fame (and possible money) for jumping on the Cosby accusation bandwagon.
I also know that plenty of people have a motive to discredit Cosby, because he’s spoken out against the disintegration of the black family and that puts him in the conservative camp at least on that issue, whatever his general politics might be. Note, also, that the current furor was sparked by a comedian who explicitly cited Cosby’s speaking out on that topic as a problem, and his own desire to damage Cosby’s reputation and popularity. To wit [emphasis mine]:
It’s even worse because Bill Cosby has the f***ing smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. He gets on TV, ”˜Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the 80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches. ”˜I don’t curse onstage.’ Well, yeah, you’re rapist, so I’ll take you saying lots of motherf***ers on Bill Cosby: Himself, if you weren’t a rapist. I don’t know what I’m doing by telling you. I guess I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns.”
Note, also, the pattern of accusations of sexual misconduct towards black men who dare to challenge the leftist line. We had Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill’s sexual allegations. Then we had Herman Cain and various women and their sexual allegations. By the way, ask yourself what happened to all those Cain accusers, and all those cases? They appear to have dropped completely out of sight virtually the moment that Cain withdrew from the political arena.
And now Cosby. Cosby was no angel, by the way, as this case demonstrates. But it also demonstrates the caliber of the actions and motivations of at least some of his accusers (if you’re interested in an article critiquing the accusers’ stories in general, see this).
In addition, ever wonder why the liberal press never jumped on the Juanita Broaddrick bandwagon? Of course not; we know the reason. I will go on record here as saying I don’t believe Broaddrick’s accusations of rape against Clinton, and that I consider Clinton a philanderer rather than rapist (the same may be true for Cosby, by the way). But Broaddrick’s accusations actually are considerably more believable than those of the Cosby accusers, in that she has some witnesses willing to say that she had told them her story shortly after the alleged rape occurred. That’s more than I’ve ever seen from Cosby’s accusers, but it’s not definitive (here’s a piece pointing out the pros and cons of Broaddrick’s story and credibility, as well as that of her confidantes).
A Toast to your wonderful clarity on the Cosby scandal. Thank you.
But, I don’t agree on Juanita B. and Billy the Rapist. They had to expend a whole lot of energy to ‘Out’ Juanita. She never sought the spotlight. Love to hook old Bubba up to an FBI Polygraph on that brutal, loathsome episode. A true scumbag.
Neo said:
“I will go on record here as saying I don’t believe Broaddrick’s accusations of rape against Clinton.”
Why not?
The left has repeated this scenario so many times that everyone knows what the left is going to do before they do it – yet it still works. They are playing up to the worst, most racist stereotypes of the black male when they pull this trick and they know exactly what they are doing. Because of those nasty stereotypes which the left keep alive just for those occasions when they need them they are able to inflict deep psychological wounds on their black male victims.
Remember when Clarence Thomas was accused by Anita Hill of sexual harassment and the NOW was demonstrating in the streets? That behavior was intolerable. When Bill Clinton was accused of sexual misconduct the NOW said so what? Who cares.
This puts me in mind of several things.
The comedian Chris Rock, who’s foul-mouthed routine Cosby would no doubt disapprove but who expressed his love of black people but hatred of ‘niggaz’ — those who would not take responsibility for their plight but blame, by extension (though Rock never says it explicitly), racism.
It puts me in mind also, if the allegations are true, of Shelley’s Ozymandias. It’s not only time that erodes greatness, but conduct also. And if Cosby was not great, if he was not a saint, he yet lived a commendable life. It would be a shame if it came to ruin by ruinous conduct.
It finally puts me in mind of Rochefoucauld’s observation about hypocrisy being the tribute vice pays to virtue. If it seems trite to us now, we sophisticates, it is nevertheless true. The anti-hypocrites would rather that everyone wallow in vice, unashamed, proud even, rather than attempting to become better. Because who’s to judge? Who among us is without sin and pure enough to preach? If that’s the standard then shutter the churches, ban the ethics studies, and banish the liberals to the ghettos to walk the talk. Hypocrites, like the poor will always be with us. Better them than the deviants.
illuminati:
Short of writing a post on Broaddrick (which I’m not interested in doing), I’ll just summarize very quickly by saying that I watched her interview and don’t find her demeanor compelling or convincing, nor do I find the trajectory of her disclosures compelling or convincing, nor do I find her corroborating witnesses compelling or convincing, especially because of their anti-Clinton interests and the anti-Clinton interests of others who would be only too happy to influence them. I also find that Clinton has a very clear patten of repeated sexual misbehavior, and it does not include rape except for Broaddrick’s accusations. They are out of character for Clinton.
All in all, I definitely do not believe her. Of course, however, there’s a chance she’s telling the truth.
On the Cosby topic, I’ve mostly been taking a “We have no way of knowing” approach. But then a few days ago, I saw a story that mentioned there had been a reporter sniffing around the story a while back (in the ’80s, I think), and Cosby redirected the investigating by leaking that his daughter had a drug problem.
Apparently the daughter has verified that it was Cosby that leaked her story to the media.
That made me think, “Hmm…”
Still not enough evidence to really say one way or another. But it does tend to make me lean a little more toward the “One of these accusations might actually be true” camp.
Neo…
Let me bring you up to speed on Mr. Cain: he took those women into civil court. EVERY LAST ONE RECANTED.
He never paid them a dime.
Source: video interview with Herman Cain.
They were all playing the fame and money hustle.
Some even had an Axlerod connection.
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As for Anita Hill…
What kind of gal FOLLOWS a man — who she later details as her tormentor — half-way across the nation?
More generally, there were PLENTY of nasty allegations about Anita that reached the ears of the Senators that gave her a sceptical ear.
She’d been cited by others as an ‘ardent pursuer’ / stalker of other power figures in town.
It’s significant that she did not (ever?) have a significant other.
Beyond that, Anita Hill profiles like an incest victim — with the perp being her father. (17 children by one wife!) At the very least the man had a strong sex drive.
If you study up on such tragedies, then you come to know that Anita Hill not only fit the profile of the (idealized) victim; she also acted in the (idealized) consequential manner… right down the line.
In her case, she was obsessed with obtaining the love and commitment of a highly powerful man — just like her father.
As you might imagine, absolutely no public figure wanted to run this conjecture up the flag pole — even as obvious as it was.
BTW, senators have usually had the stalker experience.
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What strikes me about these gals is that every account to date emphasizes that they had drinking problems then and now — and that they either took pills knowingly at the same time — or claim they were drugged.
Yet, Cosby ALREADY had a slew of sluts to the left and right of him. As an Alpha male of the first caliber, he’s getting tail at every turn of the compass.
Further, I can’t imagine ANY of these doxies being upset or revulsed at Cosby’s sexual attentions.
I can definitely imagine their upset when his interest proved to be ‘one-and-done.’
Back in the real world, young women THROW themselves at players like Cosby. He doesn’t even have to break a sweat.
And he was at his sexual peak.
He was just entirely out of reach for them. No wonder they are embittered.
As for maintaining a ‘playpen’ in Manhattan. That’s not new ground. Any gal dropping in knows what she’s in for — and down for.
Good grief. That’s not rape. That’s living the Playboy mansion lifestyle. BTW, those sluts complain — AFTER the fact — all the time, too.
These days the typical complaint is that Hef is OLD. What a shocker.
“….there is a chance that she is telling the truth.” But then, you know that President Bubba Clinton and Mrs. Bubba Clinton are lying for sure. Remember “the vast right-wing conspiracy speech” and “I did not have sex…etc.”?? The blue dress proved them both liars. We may (or may not) think Juanita Broderick is lying but it hasn’t been proven. If you had a choice, which one would you believe?
Jon Jewett:
I know for sure that Clinton lied about Lewinsky.
That does not mean he’s lying when he says he didn’t rape Broaddrick. It doesn’t work that way. I look at each incident separately. I do believe, however, that if Clinton had raped Broaddrick, he would lie about it. That doesn’t mean he did rape Broaddrick, and that she is telling the truth when she says that he did.
There are plenty of liars in the world.
You are coming across as a Cosby fanboy… girl. Which is fine, if I think you should pick better heroes. Oh, I agree, it is the left attacking a middling putz, but probably for real sins. From what I read of an article detailing what his handler for the network said he did for Cosby, I do believe Cosby was not just guilty, but really, a sexual freak. It’s not just women who are discussing what happened, at this point. Still, be a fangirl as you wish.
Some people believe we should protect those who espouse our side of things. But if what they are doing is reprehensible, I do not agree. That senator or congressman caught doing bathroom gay sex, the guys who are caught cheating on their wives? Wax em’. I don’t want them in the party or leadership. That is part of what the Dem party exists for. If they want to be morally bankrupt, go to that party. They will be protected, and their electorate doesn’t care. *punt*
Doom:
Cosby fanboy? That’s pretty funny.
I have never been a Cosby fan. Maybe very mildly, as a teenager, I think I heard a comedy album, “Why Is There Air?” and sort of liked it. Not a fan otherwise. Never watched the Cosby Show, not one time.
I admire his stance on the black family. That took courage. My sense is that his personal life is a mess, and it is known that he has certainly been unfaithful to his wife, and not just once. That’s about it for what I think of him.
I don’t make decisions about people’s veracity based on fandom, anyway. You may notice a certain pattern here, which is skepticism about adults’ claims of rape (or sexual abuse or harassment) by celebrities and/or politicians, many many years after the fact. For me, it doesn’t matter what side the politician or celebrity is on. I’m not a Clinton fan, either, but I don’t believe he raped Broaddrick.
in the past the dems employed the knjghts of the white camelia and they drowned a baby, gashed a man to death, and mutilated eliza pinkerston by cutting off her breasts and leaving her for dead…And hundreds of others, to stop their voting republican…compared to that, the cosby thing is nothing
i should add that i have met bill several times, he worked with assiciates i knew, and i was at kaufnan studios tge day his son died and he had to be told as the news gathered outside and he did not know… the hiltons, hearsts, the clintons and others i have met, and talked to along with others…
Just asking. I disagree on Clinton, as well. It’s a power thing, he had it, and has no morals. He simply doesn’t care (Clinton, though many with too much money, power, or protection from their sins). And, as I said, whether you are or not, you do come across that way. You keep defending him.
Perception isn’t everything, but there is some importance tied to it. Thanks for answering rationally. Know what I wrote wasn’t a judgment, just an observation, as well. Take observations as you may.
Doom:
And what’s the ground to discredit his morals? To be a womanizer?
As long as sex is consensual and honest and both parts are adults, everything is morally OK. And even though drugs are used in sex, as long as both know it and both agree to use drugs for sex, everything keeps being OK. It doesn’t seem that he lied or promised ethernal love in order to get a shag (he didn’t need to). And unless you consider that unmarried sex is morally wrong, there’s nothing wrong with womanizing.
It’s interesting how modern left is picking up the slack of the traditional religious puritanism. Two decades ago, who would have thought that lefties would fly the banner of “sex outside marriage is morally wrong”?
That is part of what the Dem party exists for. If they want to be morally bankrupt, go to that party. They will be protected, and their electorate doesn’t care. *punt*
An army is not made out of morally righteous individuals, pure or not.
You will find yourself in a very lonely crusade soon enough. Do you have the strength to stand up against the System all by yourself, is that it?
I think it is pretty obvious that not many people would have paid attention to what he was saying, if what Cosby is accused of doing had been known at the time he was lecturing Blacks about morality and good behavior.
As the number of accusers now mounts toward 20, as a studio fixer comes forward to tell how he facilitated Cosby’s actions, I say again “quantity has a quality all its own.”
What would it profit the reported latest accuser, an almost 80 year old ex-waitress now, to make up a tale at this stage of her life?
But this is really a replay of the old argument, about whether the mindset, actions/morality of a person who leads a corrupt, immoral life in private inevitably influence, corrupt, or even invalidate whatever good things they might espouse or do in public.
On this issue I say that the bad inevitably bleeds over into and taints the good.
If a person is an evil bastard in private, that mindset inevitably directs or influences their behavior in public. It seems to me that you can’t be a sinner in private but advocate a moral life in pubic without your private life–when known–making your pushing for the moral life much less credible.
Perhaps his advocacy is why this shit storm is descending on Cosby, because he did step off the plantation.
But, if Cosby did what he has been accused of doing, his good works do not negate the fact that he did the deeds, or mean that he should get a pass just because he advocated for some good things.
Wolla Dalbo:
If quantity had mounted before the whole thing reached the media, it would have a quality by itself.
After the cover the media has given to the Cosby affair, quantity is not to be unexpected. Indeed, the opposite. Accusers can be driven by money or by mass hysteria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria
Of course, accusations could be true too. But we must dismiss them until evidence proves it. And quantity is not evidence.
Yann–I believe that the reporting is that at the time of the settled lawsuit in 2006, the plaintiff had something like 12 other women willing to testify that Cosby had pulled something similar on them.
My understanding is that many of these dozen women are among the women who have recently leveled accusations against Cosby.
P.S.–According to one list of accusers and accusations I’ve seen, these alleged attacks started at least as far back as 1970, almost 45 years ago.
Wolla Dalbo,
By the the time the lawsuit was settled, media had already covered it.
Though attacks were said to be happened during the 70s, first accusation didn’t happen until 2000, 3 years later than Cosby had agreed to be have been paying a woman not to accuse publicly.
Then 2004, 2005, 2005 (by then previous cases were already extensively covered by media). And that was all until 2014.
And suddenly, between Nov 13 2014 and Nov 24 2014, media gets filled with Cosby story and suddenly 15 more women remembered than they were raped by Cosby 4 decades before. None of them had reported the police previously.
Yann:
That’s what is suspicious about the timeline of the accusations.
Wolla Dalbo:
What would it profit the accuser?
Getting on TV, attaining victim status, and possible money (either from the media or from Cosby himself, but more likely from the media or the anti-Cosby forces).
Any one of these motivations is more than enough for some people.
Exactly such motivations were exposed during the Herman Cain travails.
When it came to proofs: every gal recanted, entirely.
Heck, they couldn’t even get to first base on their credibility.
&&&&&
This is but a tale of sluts and their cad.
As a high profile Alpha at the apex of the entertainment arts, I can’t imagine that Cosby EVER had to stoop to rape.
&&&&
For those unaware, it’s universally expected in Black American culture that ANY woman that comes to a man’s abode/ room/ ‘crib’ has implicitly agreed to be bedded.
Yes, it’s a Black ‘thing.’
These gals all tell of showing up at what amounts to a ‘trick’ pad, and entering, and then drinking heavily, often topped off by party drugs. (or variations on such — limo lust)
Good grief!
Betsy Wright, Bubba’s Keeper of the Secrets and Splasher of Bimbo Irruptions, once had a telling exchange with Dick Morris back before Billy the Sleaze was president: Morris was becoming more and more aware of the vast number of women in the web and said to Betsy,”They’d fill a File cabinet, wouldn’t they?” and Ms.Wright replied,”No, Dick…They’d fill a warehouse.”
Side Note: Hillary Clinton might just be the sickest, most co-dependent, neediest, most blindly ambitious Female in America. How’d you like that pathology smarming up the Oval??
NeoConScum:
I don’t agree with your last paragraph.
Hillary, ambitious? Yes, very. The rest of it? Not so much. If you believe that Hillary isn’t really all that engaged emotionally and sexually with Bill anymore (and that’s the general opinion), than their marriage has become a mutually beneficial business/career partnership, and not especially sick at all.
neo…
I had the very weird experience of running across a dorm mate of Hillary — from her Arkansas days.
This (cute) 49 year-old gal told me of Hillary’s sins LONG before ANYONE in the public sphere uttered a word.
1) That she was a vicious, controlling, dyke… who tried to bed her… decades before. (!)
2) That she was — in her not so humble opinion — evil.
3) And a total fraud.
4) As was her marriage.
At the time, I hadn’t heard a discouraging word about Hillary or Bill from the MSM…. and yes, I voted for him. (H.W. Bush inflamed my rage when he Walked away from his principles. Now I came to understand why he was named Herbert WALKER Bush.)
[Any politician that rapes his own persona inflames my emotions. It’s why I could never vote for Nixon. I figured he simply HAD to be dirty. (October, 1st, 1972)]
[ Today Carter’s, Soetoro’s betrayal of Israel inflames my emotions. Anti-democratic, anti-republica, anti-liberal, they are; okay anti-Semitic, too. As for Hillary, she has no business running. She’s already been president for two terms. Just ask Chelsea!
” My Mother’s too busy; but I can get you in to see my Father….” (!)]
It was only as the years passed by that her staggeringly negative opinion about Hillary became common public knowledge.
For in 1992, I thought that everything she was telling just couldn’t be right. … !!!
Similar notions must surely cover the commentariat when I post about my run-in with Barry Soetoro and his Grandmother.
No-one expects to EVER read of someone who has actually run in to these players DECADES ago.
I accept that.
If you think my testimonies are weird… imagine how I feel!
Barry Soetoro is the umpteenth time that my intuition has proved true.
Since I don’t believe in ESP… where does that leave me?
Ambitious, but not sicker than heck..?
Sorry, Landlady. Malignant as Billy in her own special ways. A Black Hole of Need, Greed, Pay Back(to Willie Boy) and sick-azz co-dependence.
NeoConScum:
You aren’t making sense, IMHO. If Clinton’s relationship with her husband is at this point a practical one, it is very rational and not co-dependent or “sick” or even really emotional at all.
That isn’t to say she’s a laudable person. Nor is it to deny her enormous ambition and her ruthlessness in its furtherance.
I had the very weird experience of running across a dorm mate of Hillary – from her Arkansas days.
Hillary isn’t from Arkansas, so I’m not sure what you mean by ‘dorm mate’. She only came to Arkansas when she married Bill and we don’t claim her, or at least I don’t.
blert:
I don’t believe that Hillary had dorm mates in her Arkansas days. Do you mean the friend had known Hillary in college, but you heard the story during Hillary’s Arkansas years?
However, oddly enough, I have a friend who double-dated with Hillary and Bill quite a bit when they were dating (I believe this was when they were in law school). She saw them as a regular heterosexual couple.
Yep, and Juanita wasn’t raped. Now, gotta get back to Dr. Vaknin and Dr. Francisco Fernandez(Tampa).
Wolla Dalbo
The issue revolves around your personal resistance to propaganda.
Arnold S. Sarah Palin’s interviews. How many of them did you fall for, the media spin vs how many were you neutral on or suspected before the truth came out?
Until your have a track record of competence in detecting propaganda, all you have to go on are the MSewerMedia’s idea of what they think you should know about Cosby.
And that is worth as much as the NYTimes is printed on these days.
Neo…Maybe a revisit to the pages of the late great Barbara Olson’s book, “Hell To Pay”, is worth some time. I’ll go there myself.