Guilty as Charged

I grew up loving Bill Cosby. I watched him team up with Robert Culp in I Spy in the 60s, the first black actor in a dramatic role on TV. It gave us, white people as well as black, a model for equality, an uncommon view of the world back then.
I saw him do stand-up comedy on stage in the 70s, and then as the warm, wonderful, funny Cliff Huxtable, in the 80s.
Bill Cosby was someone I admired. He was charismatic and charming. He was ground-breaking, a role model.
I didn't want to believe he could be guilty of the things he was accused of, and maybe when the first woman accused him I could casually disbelieve it; I couldn't get my mind around this kind of duplicity. One woman might lie, for whatever reason; revenge, retaliation, jealousy. Two women might even lie, though that begins to stretch deniability. But 60?
I think we always want to believe people are good. It's hard to fathom that someone can present such a lovable face to the world and that it can be such a a bold-faced lie. We all have different facets to our personalities, but can they be so vastly opposed without some kind of mental instability? I'm not looking to excuse him, but there has to be mental illness there, to think what he was doing was not wrong.
He hasn't shown a shred of responsibility or remorse; he's only shown arrogance. I wonder how that will play in prison as he begins his 3-10 year sentence. Which is not long enough.