Spero Consulting

We could com­plain about all of the press cov­er­age and resources devoted to the creep, but we won’t. Many, many oth­ers have done that.

Instead, we’ll ask a sim­ple ques­tion. What is creepier: the late creep or the over-​the-​top adu­la­tion of, and fas­ci­na­tion with, the him? (We have nei­ther and have delayed writ­ing about him; we did not want to appear hyp­o­crit­i­cal or inconsistent.)

Despite his macabre and twisted exis­tence over a period last­ing twenty years or so, it is a very, very close call, and we’re not sure of the answer. Know this, though, this was no modern-​day Dorian Gray. As we see it, the out­side became deformed and degraded as the inside rot­ted. So, what does that say about a soci­ety that rev­els in his creepi­ness and does not have the matu­rity to shun and dis­dain him?

We don’t think it is con­tra­dic­tory to say, “God rest his soul,” and “good rid­dance,” and we don’t think that we are alone in express­ing those sentiments.

Lastly, like our dif­fi­cult tit­u­lar ques­tion, we’re not sure whose behav­ior is more shame­ful: his or his enablers and han­dlers and apologists?

What we do know is what Jesus said in Matthew, 18:6: “Who­ever causes one of these lit­tle ones who believe in me to sin, it would be bet­ter for him to have a great mill­stone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

We don’t think that it mat­ters whether the cau­sa­tion is direct or indi­rect, and that makes it a lot like joint-​and-​several lia­bil­ity. Unlike the courts, those judg­ments can last an eternity.