Monday evening when I fell and found myself sitting on a curb nursing an injured knee, I actually thought to myself, "At least I'm having a better week than Bill Cosby." If you're alive and able to read this, I assume you are, too.
I keep trying to imagine a way Dr. Cosby — and how long before he loses that honor? — could climb out of his current scandal with some part of his reputation intact. The best I've been able to muster would require hard evidence of an evil Cosby Impersonator who likes to sneak into Bill's hotel rooms and offices to drug and molest women.
What I'm waiting for are a couple of real polls (i.e., not online ones) that tells us how many people out there think Cosby is guilty of the accusations. So far, the only one I've found is Rasmussen, whose polls on politics are sometimes wildly inaccurate…and anyway, it's just one poll. It said nearly half of Americans think it's likely the recent allegations of sexual assault are true and also…
42% of American Adults have a favorable impression of Cosby, including 16% who have a Very Favorable impression of him. Thirty-six percent (36%) view The Cosby Show star unfavorably, including 14% with a Very Unfavorable impression. Another 22% are not sure what they think of Cosby.
The survey, which has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points, was conducted a week ago. Betcha Cosby's numbers have gone down a notch or two since then.
The survey also said a majority of respondents felt that it was wrong to yank reruns of The Cosby Show unless or until until he is officially charged with a crime. That's kind of a dodgy question since the show's not off because stations think he's guilty. It's off because either advertisers were withdrawing sponsorship or because the stations knew that was coming. Stations probably also didn't want to deal with the inevitable protests if they left it on but that's a secondary reason.
The primary one is that advertisers were moving their commercials to other shows. I don't blame them. There's no upside for them in continuing to support that show right now. All they can do is get people mad at them. A lot of people are real angry at Bill Cosby right now and some of them have to take it out on someone.