Presumed Innocence is Dead: The Bright Side

Friends, way back, in a different era, before we knew sexually assaulting and/or raping women was wrong, in the ‘90s, TV was dominated by The Trial of the Century. The OJ trial was on TV 27 hours every day. As a result, we saw a proliferation of crime-based TV dramas. I have to be honest with you here: Whiggy hates that crap. Each show has the same predictable plot points, sparkly pseudoscience and cookie-cutter characters. I would rather watch The Pelosi give an interview than watch that tripe! Oh wait, that was a bad example. Watching The Pelosi forget who she is in the middle of an interview is hilarious! A more apt comparison would be watching Al Franken apologize again. Nope. Those are funny as hell too. Let me see here… Hmmm … Oh I got it! I would rather watch CNN talk about shoes and pie than watch TV crime dramas. See what I did there? I would rather watch overpaid immoral liberals disgrace themselves, the country and what used to be a respected institution than watch a single TV crime drama. It all started when I was a young lad of ….

“Whiggy, there you go again,” you are saying. “Get to the point.”

You know, your impatience is getting really annoying. I like telling stories. But, OK, I’ll get to the point.

Today I am rejoicing! Halleluiah! Praise the Lord! Allah Akbar! Praise be to Satan! and all that stuff. The day of the crime drama is over! There will be no more Law and Order. There will be no more Cagney and Lacey (shut-up I am old). There will be no more Crimes of the Century. We are free. Rejoice one and all!

“Whiggy …point?”

Wow, you guys are a bummer!

These shows are all dead, my friends, because they no longer have relevant material. They are outdated. Their subject matter has evaporated.

“Ah,” you say, “because the real/fake news is more interesting and even more unbelievable.”

That’s pretty presumptuous of you. This is my blog. I’ll make my own points. Plus, while factually accurate, your point is incorrect. No, their material is irrelevant the way making a show about Americans dying of Polio is irreverent. It no longer happens. These shows rely on the fact that we have a justice system and that justice system is built on the presumption of innocent. That system is gone. Now the shows would consist of two scenes:

Scene the First:

Woman: He assaulted me.

Social Media: Guilty!

The presumption of innocence has been eradicated by a vaccine. That vaccine is the mixture of politically motivated news corporations and politically motivated social media. The discovery of this miracle cure will go down in history.  Just like the greats who lead the way, Al Gore and Barack Obama, the creators of this vaccine will surely win a well-deserved Nobel Prize for Peace or bullsh@t rhetoric. I am not sure what they call it now.

Friends, the media has become the prosecutor and judge. Social media is the not-so-secret jury. There are no more allegations. There are only guilty verdicts. The scary thing about this is that it is actually an improvement! Back in the Days of Old, before we knew attending meetings in our underwear was inappropriate, the 90’s, only one side was always guilty. Allegations against anyone on the right were not allegations. They were verdicts of guilt. Allegations against anyone on the left were part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. Evidence did not matter. Those on the left were always innocent …. I’m mean …Duh! A dead body found in the White house? Pfft! That was clearly a suicide! Thousands of FBI files of those on the right found in the First Lady’s office? Lupita (I’m racist) must have moved them from a secure facility to the First Lady’s office so she could vacuum. Rape settlements? Pishaw! All, part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. A stain on a dress? Umm.. well … “I have sinned” I can’t believe people care about the resident’s sex life. All forgiven!

The improvement is that now, all allegations against any man, left or right, for any sexualized or flirtatious behavior is not just a guilty verdict, but also treated the same as gang rape of nuns on the Vatican alter during a children’s mass. Finally, the media has become fair…ish. The first step was to admit that anyone on the left can be guilty of any crime. Now, we just need them to look for equal punishment. Roy Moore is accused of horrible and disgusting behavior 40 years ago with no proof and no contemporaneous reports and he should drop out of a race, because we all know Alabama voters are too stupid to find him guilty without a trial or, at least, deeper investigation. Bill Clinton settled a rape suit and was accused of several more sexual assaults and he was only a target of the vast right-wing conspiracy. But that was ancient days, when we did not know it was wrong to masturbate and shower in front of employees. You know …the 90’s. Now, the left has seen the light. If only they knew back then that men on the left should rape and assault women like they finally do now, they would have suggested by resign. Thank God, we didn’t know that it was wrong for men on the left to drive off a bridge drunk and leave a woman for dead back in 1969.

Scene the Second:

Woman: He should be punished.

Social Media: He is republican, he should be drawn and quartered.

Social Media: He is a democrat, bring him before the ethics committee and put a firmly written letter into his file for 90 days!

The death of the TV crime drama is not the only good thing to come from this new-found freedom from due process. No indeed. Friends, you are about to witness history. If the death of presumed innocence will destroy the TV crime drama genre, I think we can take down the MSN. Grab a beverage. Have a seat. Relax and witness history in the making.

I, Whiggy, make the following (false, but that doesn’t matter) allegations:

  • Rachel Maddow once sexually assaulted a kitten while Chris Mathews recorded it.
  • Joy Reid ate the kitten.
  • Wolf Blitzer makes his staff give him a bath in a public doggy wash once a week.
  • Christiane Amanpour blow-dries Wolf Blitzer after his bath and makes the interns watch.
  • Martin Bashir fondles coconuts in front of the camera during commercial breaks.
  • Lester Holt insists that all his aides wear The Flash Underoos and tell him about it in detailed haikus.
  • Keith Olbermann rapes himself every morning.
  • Joe Scarborough has consensual sex with Mika Brezinski and is happy about it.
  • Anderson Cooper acted inappropriately with a camel during the election.
  • Jorge Ramos ate the camel.
  • Abilio “Jim” Acosta uses Capybara as love slaves.
  • Brian Williams eats the leftover Capybara.
  • Dom Lemon continually asks Asian trans women is they want to taste is tartness.
  • Connie Chung … is an angel! Leave her alone!
  • Anna Navarro once ate a baby.
  • Shepard Smith was that baby.

And there you go! Please feel free to add your own with the hashtag: #fakeallegethis and the disclaimer: (Fake Allegation) And then spread far and wide. Soon they will all be instantly fired. The MSN, as we know it, will collapse. Rejoice one and all!