Cos
By
Leonard Zwelling
In 1982, Genie and I were in Las Vegas for a meeting of the American Chemical Society. This was during my cis-platinum days. I was speaking on a program about the drug and the use of platinum-based compounds in the therapy of disease. The American Chemical Society meeting was huge and they had lots of people around to assist the membership and guests in obtaining tickets to shows in Vegas. We were fortunate. We got tickets to see Bill Cosby. We were in the fifth row.
Mr. Cosby performed the routine that many people have seen because it became an HBO special and was the basis of his book Fatherhood. It replayed many of the themes of his television show about parents, married couples, and children. It was a terrific act and the place was rolling. We had only one child at that point so Mr. Cosby pointed out that I was not really a parent yet because if something was broken I would know who did it. He looked right at me when he said that, too.
Now the myth has been shattered.
Bill Cosby, at the age of 80, is now a convicted felon who has used and abused young women by drugging them and taking advantage of them. It’s awful.
That’s not what I want to write about.
Clearly, the person we saw on television and admired for his good works, his strong beliefs, his pioneering work on race and his infectious good humor had a very dark side. So what can we believe about what we see? Obviously, when it comes to people it seems, very little. How disappointing!
If Bill Cosby can go from America’s Dad to a criminal, what else could happen? Oh, I know, the President of the United States could be an inveterate womanizer, crook, liar and maybe not even a billionaire. He may even have good friends in Russia.
The nominee to lead the second largest agency in the federal government could be a well-known drinker, pill pusher, and a creator of hostile work environments who maintains his position as the White House doctor despite it all.
Multiple Congressmen and Senators can be ousted for sexual misconduct and the use of taxpayer money to buy off women with whom they had had affairs.
Hollywood moguls can finally be outed for taking the casting couch to new lows. Lawyers can be fixers who take the Fifth. And, oh yes, our entire system of government can be under cyber attack from a sworn enemy while the President of the United States ignores it and Congress does nothing.
Obi-Wan Mueller, you’re our only hope!
The adults in the room are acting like children and many are getting away with it. If we are to rescue America from the plague of Trumpism and the greed of runaway capitalism (as in the health care-industrial complex), it will start with the real adults stepping up to the plate and putting the big children in jail.
It looks like that will happen with Bill Cosby. But that’s only a start.
The Mueller investigation along with the investigation into Michael Cohen’s misdeeds in the Southern District of New York could be watersheds for America. It’s time for the good guys to make a comeback and end the cynicism that is running wild fueling the Trump freight train.
If a man like Donald Trump can become the President of the United States, it says two things. First, the person he ran against was even worse—and many people obviously felt that way. Second, people will ignore anything, even their own self-interest, to give vent to their emotions of rage and perceived unfairness.
OK. We got that out of our system. Let’s get back to reality and get some candidates who actually act like adults. Surely they must be somewhere.
