Joe Scarborough, who made his solid contribution to rape culture on Morning Joe yesterday, insisted that the women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault are just looking for fame and that the media shouldn’t report their claims because of the length of time between the assaults and the media coverage. Commenting on Camille Cosby’s statement of support for her husband in which she bemoaned the fact that women could accuse her husband without being ?vetted,? Scarborough was quick to agree that these women should be ?vetted,? since:
“Any woman can come forward right now and say ‘Billy Cosby did this to me 40 years ago’ and be on the cover of US Weekly,” he said. “With no vetting?They will print your story, and maybe it happened. If it did, it’s tragic. But if it didn’t happen, you get your 15 minutes of fame.?
We should apparently echo history in which we ask rape victims what they were wearing, if they had been drinking, how many men they’ve slept with, whether they ever had consensual sex with their attacker, whether they’ve ever had premarital or extramarital sex with anyone, and what exactly they did to prevent their rape.
In Scarborough’s view, a very small number of rapes would be ever be mentioned by the media. About 92 percent of rape victims’ voices would be silenced, since “only 10 percent of rapes lead to an arrest, only 8 percent?are ever prosecuted and only 4 percent result in a felony conviction.”
Scarborough adds to the voices who’ve supported Cosby on the basis that the attacks are “too old” to be considered legitimate claims today. Despite the fact that the first victim did go to police, and the district attorney at the time “thought?Cosby was probably guilty and he wanted to arrest him, but he didn’t have sufficient proof of the alleged assault,” and the fact that 13 women went to court to testify to the sexual assault perpetrated against them once the first victim filed a civil suit in 2005, Scarborough insists that these women did not act quickly enough to be considered seriously by reporters. ?The host of Morning Joe also didn’t define a length of time between an assault and a report that should make the report invalid to the media.
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