Hosts On "The View" Give Bill Cosby More Leeway Than "Bad Teachers"

The View in August (via Ed Week):

Goldberg, the host of ABC's "The View," led her co-hosts in a heated discussion on tenure on Monday's and Tuesday's show.

The discussion started during Monday's "hot topics" segment with a mention of one of the two lawsuits challenging New York state's teacher-tenure laws.

"This is for all the teachers in the audience," said Goldberg, suggesting the New York state lawsuit and similar attacks on tenure "will most likely become a big issue in the 2016 presidential elections."
"Now, no one wants a teacher in the classroom who is not a good teacher," Goldberg said.

Regular (and soon departing) co-host Jenny McCarthy cited some of the lawsuit's examples of bad teacher behavior and said: "Who's protecting the students?

Guest co-host Nicolle Wallace, a former communications adviser to President George W. Bush and now a frequent commentator on cable news shows, paraphrased an unspecified op-ed from that morning, saying, "The teachers have a union. The kids don't have a union."

Guest co-host Kayleigh McEnany, another conservative commentator, added some backstage context. "Whoopi, you were sounding a little conservative back in the green room on this one."

Goldberg, the Oscar-winning actress who comes off as liberal on most issues, said: "I'm a thinker. I think about what's best for us. To me, bad teachers don't do anybody any good. So the unions need to recognize that parents are not going to stand for it anymore. And teachers, in your union, you need to say these bad teachers are making us look bad, and we don't want it."

The View this week (via Daily Beast):

In a notably ill-informed (and that’s really saying something) segment on Monday, the ladies of The View took on the resurfacing Cosby allegations with poise, nuance, and sensitivity. Just kidding—they were real big d-bags about it. Whoopi Goldberg led the crusade by boldly saying what absolutely nobody is thinking: “I hope there is justice for this lady, I hope somebody gets to the bottom of this, but I'm going to reserve my judgment because I have a lot of questions.”

The lady who Goldberg is referring to is Barbara Bowman, one of the victims who agreed to testify in the 2006 case. According to Bowman, “Cosby won my trust as a 17-year-old aspiring actress in 1985, brainwashed me into viewing him as a father figure, and then assaulted me multiple times.”

Apparently, despite 30 years of publicly telling her story, Whoopi Goldberg still thinks Bowman has “a lot of questions” to answer to. What those questions are, and why a survivor ought to face an inquisition for sharing her traumatic experience while her alleged rapist pursues his illustrious career in peace for decades, is a question I would like to ask Whoopi Goldberg.

As you can probably guess, Goldberg did not demonstrate a similar distrust towards Cosby himself, instead suggesting that “you say, this is a friend of mine and I don’t know.” While Goldberg was too busy not blaming anyone (except the victim), Rosie Perez dared to reveal the true culprit: the world wide web. She explained, “You know what's crazy for me though, is whether the allegations are true or not, is the fact that the venom that the public has when they go on social media…And if these are true, I hope these women have their day in court and he gets the punishment—but if it's not true, a lot of people have rushed to judgment.”

Because nothing screams “rushing to justice” like decades of not being held accountable for your crimes, followed by another decade of public amnesia post allegations. 

I wonder if a teacher with 16 allegations of rape against him would get a similar defense from Whoopi Goldberg and her View co-hosts?

I'm going to say, uh, probably not.

The next time Whoopi Goldberg says anything about "bad teachers," make sure you confront her on social media about her defense of Cosby.

Because she's full of shit.

In fact, confront her anyway about it.

Here and here.