Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial began yesterday in Norristown, Pennsylvania, but Bill’s enabling and complicit wife didn’t appear with him. Smart move by defense counsel: Camille Cosby’s almost certain knowledge of her husband/meal ticket’s infidelity and worse makes the pair seem like a couple of monsters, and the jury would be conflicted seeing Mrs. Cosby sitting in court as women described being drugged and assaulted by Funny Bill while her husband’s defense was not “I didn’t do it” but “it was consensual.” Still, having Cosby entering the Montgomery County courtroom without family present would send the message that he was being shunned by those who know him best. What to do?
Eureka! Have the accused serial sexually predator accompanied by a member of the family the public knows and loves best, his TV family from “The Cosby Show! Perfect! It sends the message that he is still supported and loved by those who know him. It proves that he has not been abandoned and shunned. Best of all, such an entrance makes Cosby appear to be the nice, ethical, fatherly Bill Cosby everyone thinks they know, the one who raised four adorable girls and who had a beautiful feminist wife, a noble and moral man who would never, never do the things that over 50 women say he did to them, the money-grubbing sluts.
So instead of his real-life wife, Cosby was guided into the courtroom by former television daughter Keishia Knight Pulliam, who played the cute little one, adorable Rudy, from 1984 to 1992. Pulliam agreed to be a prop, in other words, a prop designed to help implant reasonable doubt in a case where reasonable doubt will be hard to come by. Bias and cognitive dissonance helps, though. Rudy is there to help “Dad” by nourishing bias as a jury considers Andrea Constand’s lon-standing accusation that Cosby drugged and molester her.
Of Knight Pulliam’s presence, Cosby’s spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said: “She’s not here to proclaim guilt or innocence. She’s here to finally hear the truth for herself in the courtroom. She wants people to stop listening to the sensationalism and come hear the truth.” Nonsense. If Pulliam wanted to do just that, she could have arrived at the courtroom like anyone else, and sat quietly among the spectators. Instead, she was playing a role calculated to make it harder for a jury to see through Cosby’s celebrity and public persona. She knew it, too.
Why would an alleged feminist ally herself with a sexual predator and against so many women? Well, it can’t hurt Pulliam’s career any, since she barely has a career. She has been languishing in post-child star Hell for sometime now, going the “She’s all grown up and she’s bad’ route that worked out so well for Lindsay Lohan; the Cosby trial gig—no, I don’t think its unfair to ask if she was paid—at least reminds people that Rudy is 38 and still around. Maybe a reality show producer is watching.
Last year, Pulliam had Amber Rose on her podcast “Kandidly Keshia”—I’m sure you never miss it-—to promote Rose’s “Slut Walk” event designed to end slut-shaming. When he mentioned Cosby, she responded,
“I feel you, and everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but we still live in a country where you’re innocent till proven guilty. And I understand everything that’s happened, and me being a feminist and believing women—no means no and I get that—but, just so you know, I did work with him for a really long time. I love him dearly still and that isn’t the man that I know.”
Translation: My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts. Maybe this statement led to the phone call from Cosby’s lawyer.
This is not a case where a responsible individual decides they should be siding with the defendant.
Constand filed a police complaint in 2005 about the night a year earlier when, allegedly, Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her. She was not the first woman who had given accounts of such conduct, but the news media and celebrity press were skeptical. Cosby and his agents offered Constand money for school tuition when her mother, Gianna, called to confront him in January 2006. Constand’s complaint was referred to the DA office in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where the district attorney found the case to be too weak to prosecute, a controversial decision. So Constand sued Cosby, and thirteen other women claiming to be victims of the same kinds of attacks by the comic agreed to support the lawsuit. Cosby gave four days of deposition testimony and then negotiated a confidential settlement with Constand in 2006.
Then, in 2014, after comedian Hannibal Buress joked about Cosby being a rapist, Cosby’s PR response was a bit too aggressive, and dozens of new accusers came forward to tell their stories. Cosby’s lawyers essentially accused them all of lying, Constant included, which eventually prompted a a federal judge to grant an Associated Press motion to unseal parts of his deposition. Among other disturbing statements under oath, Cosby said he had frequently obtained quaaludes in the 1970s to give women before having sex with them.
This renders Pulliam’s statement that “that isn’t the man that I know” as idiocy. So? “That isn’t the man that I know”…so the man on trial is a doppleganger? “That isn’t the man that I know”...so that deposition was a fake? “That isn’t the man that I know”…so he must have been possessed? What, Keishia? What does that statement mean? That he never molested you? Good to know. So what?
In the trial yesterday, District Attorney Kevin Steele was allowed to call just one other accuser as representative of the more than 50 women who have told strikingly similar stories. (Are some of them trying to cash in? It’s not unlikely. In sexual harassment and assault cases, however, multiple victims coming forward is typical, and for that many to be lying is unprecedented.) Kelly Johnson, in tears, testified that Cosby attacked her in a Hotel Bel-Air bungalow in Los Angeles after having her swallow a large white pill. She said she hesitated, and Bill pulled out the “Trust me. You know the Cos would never hurt you” card. She awoke a while later, she said, lying on the bed, partly undressed, with Cosby behind her. She said she had lotion on her hand and “he made me touch his penis….My dress was pulled up from the bottom, and it was pulled down from the top…My breasts were out. I felt naked.”
If Pulliam really cared about feminism, truth and justice like she claims to, she would do her part to keep Rudy and the Huxtables out of this trial. All they can do is confuse people, stir up emotions, and make it harder for the jury to cut through bias, denial, celebrity and disillusionment to come up with a fair verdict. Instead, Keishia Knight Pulliam enlisted as a human prop, putting Rudy Huxtable in the service of rapist.
(Aside: Even this story can’t be reported by some members of the biased news media without a gratuitous and unfair slap at the President of the United States.)
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Sources: TIME, New York Times, The Daily Beast
Ethics Alarms 
Jack,
Completely unrelated, but something that might catch your interest. The victim was allegedly urinating outside the Denny’s when the assailant (husband to a Sherif’s deputy) wrestled him to the ground and held him in a choke hold until his death:
http://www.khou.com/news/local/lawyer-new-video-released-in-connection-with-fatal-beating/445977912
Yes, that is an interesting story.
Feminists. Does anyone believe them anymore about anything?
“Never assume malice when stupidity is a possibility” I believe that they believe what they’re saying, generally… I just think they have a whole lot of growing up to do.
That Daily Beast article is really low…
Bill Cosby something something #trumpsamerica
At this point in time, nothing Bill Cosby does or convinces others to do for him surprises me anymore. Everything about him and his character is dead to me.
I really don’t even care to discuss him anymore, let the courts deal with that dirtbag.
At some point, you have to wonder whatever happened to the statute of limitations. If for some reason he were not guilty, it is going to be impossible, 10+ years later, to prove either consent or absence.
Go ahead, tell us: where were you on that night, and what were you doing? Can you prove it?
As to the immunity: not sure it was a good decision on the part of the state’s atty, but there it was. It hardly seems fair to offer it, reap the benefits, and the withdraw it.
One way or the other, my guess is that any conviction will be followed by a successful appeal, assuming the elderly and possibly reprehensible defendant survives the process.
I’ll bet that he gets acquitted. Costand is not the strongest case.
And what a media shitshow that’ll be. I should make bingo cards for it; “This just proves that America Hates Women” will be the center square.
I am leaning that way after the most recent newspaper coverage. It appears that the state opened with _Williams_ rule evidence, which is to say, evidence of similar fact evidence. This is admissible to show lack of mistake or pattern peculiar to defendant, at least in some states.
Problem was that their similar fact evidence might be taken by the defense as similar fact. The witness had said non-consensual, no relationship, no contact with def after act. Phone records showed 70+ calls between them, with 50+ being made by the similar-fact victim.
I’d expect the def’s atty to make some hay out of that: the “similar facts” show that in fact there was enough of a relationship that the contact continued long after the alleged offense. And if one vic changes her mind when money might be had, could another do the same thing.
But if he does get convicted, I think he has several good grounds for appeal. And I am usually suspicious of _Williams_ rule evidence anyway.
(leaning that way, meaning agreeing that acquittal is not unlikely)
Cosby made the mistake of advocating self reliance to Blacks. Progressives will do anything to punish him, as a lesson to the rest they want to keep on the Democratic plantation. Cosby was immune to progressives up until now, as an example of a poor Black who made good. His stance on how others could do the same (without government assistance) ran counter to the progressive story line.
Cosby is horrible, no doubt. His public persona allowed him to seduce women. Yes, he drugged them… but the ‘ladies’ involved took unknown drugs offered by Cosby and took YEARS to complain, and many only went to the press after cash settlements from Cosby. This seemed to be a thing with him, and he seems to have paid off dozens of such ‘ladies’ over the years.
These cases are so weak, no one prosecuted until progressives pulled dirty tricks (unsealed documents, revoked verbal immunity, media slanted stories, the works.) Now THIS case, evidently the only one within the statute of limitations in any jurisdiction, is being prosecuted years after the fact, and the defendant took money already in a civil trial. It is a circus, designed to vilify Cosby.
These proceedings are politically motivated. Even if (when) acquitted, the progressives have made him an example of the lengths they will go to to discipline a ‘race traitor.’ This is to chill anyone who would stand up to them. Cosby had a fatal flaw. It finally got him, but would never have been prosecuted and raged over if he was a good little progressive.
What a ridiculous thing to write.
Cosby escaped prosecution because prosecutors, remembering OJ, knew that his celebrity status and public personal made him almost immune. Women didn’t all complain because most were in show business and knew he could destroy them. They did not consent to being molested while unconscious, and the naturally trusted a figure whose image was benign. I’ve read the accounts, all of them. There is literally no chance, none, that he didn’t sexually assault most or all of them, and rape several. You cannot consent to being sexually molested while drugged, and agreeing to take a drug is no more consent than agreeing to get drunk. Some of the women were willing to be felt up a bit to get a job; some of them might have forgiven their assaults for the right part; some of them were gullible or naive; sure, Cosby’s political foes love to see him brought low, and NONE of that changes his guilt or mitigates his betrayal of those who trusted him one bit.
Cosby did NOT seduce women. Using drugs to render women helpless and indefensible isn’t seduction. He’s a rapist and a felon, whether he’s acquitted in this trial or not. As with OJ, the evidence is overwhelming.
“He’s a rapist and a felon, whether he’s acquitted in this trial or not.”
So is Bill Clinton, Jack. I agree that Cosby deserves EVERYTHING he has coming to him. But you cannot seriously assert that the left is not pushing this for political reasons.
The willingly taking drugs thing is not a positive defense for Cosby, but it will go far to convince a jury (civil or criminal) that it mitigates the severity of the crime. I am not blaming the victim, here: sleeping your way to the top is a time honored acting skill in Hollywood (called the ‘casting couch’) and these women were using Cosby in an accepted (if icky) method to advance their careers. They still did not deserve to be raped.
If a white elderly gentleman walk through a minority neighborhood in South Chicago, wearing gold jewelry and flashing cash, there is a high probability he will be robbed. Did he deserve to be robbed? Of course not. Was he in any way responsible for placing himself in that situation? Maybe. He was remarkable naive and careless to not know where he was. Still did not deserve to be robbed.
So is Bill Clinton, Jack.
Are you trying to drive me crazy? You know that is no argument to ignore Cosby, so why make it? And even by Clinton standards, Cosby is outrageous.
I give up, Jack. We are agreeing Cosby is scum. I am adding that selective faux outrage is fueling the prosecution.
Never mind: I’d rather talk baseball.
Copping out. OK, there’s selective faux outrage. I’m not engaged in it. It doesn’t make the prosecution invalid or the women less abused. You don’t usually fall for that; I was just trying to yank you back into a sensible ethical orbit. That’s all.
I do it with love.
I just ran out of words today. Check my posts today 😀
I still think we are in violent agreement about ole’ Bill.
Almost all of the accusers cannot take Cosby to criminal court, due to the statute of limitations. Of course, this means that feminists are generally reacting by (guess!)…
a) Educating women about the importance of going to the police immediately after being sexually violated, in order to prevent others from being victimized, OR
b) Trying to abolish the statute of limitations, which is clearly just an evil tool if the patriarchy!
Ol’ Ira couldn’t get through the first sentence without denigrating a Trump. “What does the former The Cosby Show actress Keshia Knight Pulliam have in common with Ivanka Trump?” To answer the question, absolutely nothing.
What’s the difference between Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby? Quaaludes.