Bill Cosby - the Dapper Laughs of his generation.
I wonder if Cosby’s demographic appeal is shifting. Maybe away from Huxtable father & husband sweater fiend & more toward the MRA, PUA & Gamergate crowd?
That could explain it. An audience full of people who find anecdotal accounts of women lying about rape & assault to be compelling arguments.
If he can legally get away with raping 30 women, doesn’t it make sense to find justice through other means?
That’s it, Bill; things don’t look so bad when you learn to laugh at yourself 
So, if working under the assumption that he is a falsely accused public figure, who is a comedian, how should he handle it?
Comedy is his only weapon.
Har de Har de harde HAR!
I’d wonder this even before all this happened, but… people pay to see Bill Cosby?
He is one of the most un-funny motherfuckers on the planet who is supposedly funny.
I remember when he’d be on Carson or whatever a million years ago and all these people in the audience are laughing hysterically at every dopey thing he sez, and I’m like, am I missing something?
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So, if working under the assumption that he is a falsely accused public figure, who is a comedian, how should he handle it?[/quote]
At this point it would be nothing short of miraculous for Cosby to be innocent. Think of how hard it would be to round up not one, not two, but dozens of women willing to put it all on the line to falsely accuse the same person of raping them over the span of decades. Even though most of those women would have nothing to gain, financially or otherwise. Even though none had a previous history of false accusations. Even though making a TRUE rape accusation against a public figure can be a traumatic, humiliating and privacy-destroying experience. And these can’t just be random women either—each would have to be able to name a time and place when they met privately with Cosby in which the attack could have plausibly happened.
All available evidence indicates his penis is a weapon.
Yeah, showing you think drugging women is an appropriate subject for jokes sounds like a great approach to that. You know, if you haven’t had time to write a counterfactual “If I Did It” book. 
maybe it wasn’t a joke so much as a legitimate warning… 
From that assumption, he should handle it with grace and not sociopathic arrogance.
Sexual assault appears to be his weapon of choice.
Cosby is also an author and public speaker. He doesn’t just get up in front of audiences and tell jokes. Even if comedian were his sole profession, though, there’s no rule that he has to respond to accusations or criticisms with humor. Anyone, regardless of profession, has the option of dealing with accusations by going to court. If Cosby really is falsely accused he’d have a lot more to gain by responding with counter-charges of libel and slander than he would with jokes about doing the very thing he’s accused of.
Can anyone find any examples of men who have been falsely accused of rape by many women?
I can’t. There are some harrowing stories out there of lives ruined by false accusation but I can’t find one example of someone being exonerated after multiple false accusations.
He should handle it y making a public statement about how he’s taking these accusations very seriously and will certainly be working with these women to get the truth of the matter out there. If he’s innocent, what reason is there for him to NOT to be be engaging with these women and trying to understand the accusations?
Instead, he ridicules these women, because he’s got the fame and the power. It infuriates me to no end to see famous people take advantage of their positions. As if it wasn’t hard enough for a person to come out and accuse someone of rape anyway, now these women have to endure endless public humiliation and questioning about how they must have made it up for.
Aaaargh. Dozens of women have accused him, how can people still defend him? I know, innocent until proven guilty and all, but rape accusations rarely actually lead anywhere, certainly not in a conviction. The automatic assumption is always that you have to prove the rape happened, which is often nearly impossible. These women have nothing to gain except ridicule. Or do you think dozens of women just woke up one day and thought “hey, I’m gonna accuse a prominen public figure of rape, it’ll be a cakewalk and totally not destroy my life!”.
You people have NO IDEA what a traumatic experience it is to not only be raped, but then have to hear countless people accuse you of making false accusations. NO IDEA.
Too soon, man. Too soon.
Here’s one of the first google results I found.
http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=2990
Whether that kind of thing has happened to other people in completely different circumstances isn’t really relevant to the accusations against Cosby, of course. There’s not exactly a large sample size of identical situations to get a pattern from, and even if there were, it would be a hell of a lot more reliable to look at the strength of these specific accusations (which do look quite strong).
Is that so? A common impression non-USians get of the US legal system is “I stubbed my toe. It’s your fault. I’m gonna sue you for 234 fantastillion dollars.”
I bow to your google-fu.
Reading between the lines of your example, it seems like there may have been some police misconduct in assisting victims with identifying the rapist.
I am not in disagreement with you concerning the weight of the accusations against Cosby. However, all of the discussion centres around this point. Defenders of Cosby can sweep each and every accusation under the rug. No evidence, no trial, no guilt.
I am attempting to come at this from a different angle. To those people seeking to defend Cosby, I would like to hear a rationalisation concerning the uniqueness of his situation. Do they really believe it is a conspiracy?
I don’t know about his Carson appearances, or his current schtick, but yes, his vintage comedy stuff is brilliant. His bit about average-schlub Noah being unwillingly picked by God to build the ark is an all-time classic.
That said, in off-stage personal terms it sounds like he’s a real jerk, even if all the really horrible accusations against him aren’t true.
