Hooray for the Italians, and Nutella!

[Occhidiangela]

He may be innocent of the charges, or not, who knows, I hope the court finds out The Truth.   Being an imperfect human being, Mr Bryant unfortunately forgot something important:

If you make money on your image and reputation, then that image and reputation require maintenance and care in upkeep, or you will lose the dough. As Andre Aggasi says in those Cannon camera ads, "Image is everything." In some cases, that is true.

TO repeat my previous comment: I don't know if he is or is not guilty. However, he has shown by violating his marriage vow that his integrity is suspect. Your integrity is part of your reputation. It was either a tactical ploy to admit to adultery and try to mitigate the PR damage his indiscretion has caused, or Kobe was being a man about things and 'fessing up. I'd like to believe the latter, and his reputation to date would lead me to that conclusion. We shall see.

Point two: He makes endorsement money on his image, part of which is that he is not the typical gangsta thug, ala Iverson, nor a womanizer such as Rodman or Patrick Ewing. By betraying his image, and thus by not holding up his end of the deal to keep a clean image (cheating on your wife is hardly consistent with a clean image) he has let down the endorsers.

You ever hear this one?

" 'Tis well that the court should acquit thee
'Twere best hadst thou never been tried."

Think about it.

Your assertion that I am advocating a witch hunt is purest crap. Read the line in bold again. My point, the one that went sailing over your head, was that reputation is a fickle thing, and that when you buy "image" with money, that image must be maintained or there is a breach, and I for one am glad to see accoutability. I won't get started on the hundred dollar sneakers that Michael Jordan and Nike inflicted on America.

Kobe Bryant put himself into a completely stupid situation by cheating on his wife. (So did President Clinton, so did Gary Hart.) Whether or not he sexually assaulted that young lady, he set himself up, made himself vulnerable to being hauled up before the completely biased court of public opinion.

Even if she is lying, even if she is a drama queen who is a complete nutcase, what in the hell was he doing messing with her in the first place?

He's a married man. (And, OBTW, his wife is drop dead gorgeous. What was he thinking? There's many a man who would crawl through a mile of broken glass and barbed wire for a lady like her . . . )