Claim: Opinion piece by Bill Cosby details political and social issues he's tired of.
Example:[Collected via e-mail, August 2011]
"I'm 76 and I'm Tired" — by Bill Cosby
I'm 76. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them — with their own money.
Origins: A widely circulated August 2011 version of the article excerpted above presented the piece as the work of comedian Bill Cosby. It's not (and his own site features a
denial of it) — the above-referenced opinion piece was written by Robert A. Hall, a former Massachusetts state senator and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is also the author of the 2005 book The Good Bits (The Marines, the Massachusetts Senate and Managing Associations). Robert Hall blogs as The Old Jarhead at tartanmarine.blogspot.com, and the piece quoted here, titled "I'm Tired," was his blog entry for 19 February 2009.
Some have confused the item's actual author (Robert A. Hall, former Massachusetts state senator) with Robert David Hall (actor who plays coroner Dr. Al Robbins on the TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.) Though the names are similar, they're different people. Compounding the problem, one version of the e-mail displays within it a photograph of the actor, thereby erroneously leading recipients to believe the man pictured is the piece's author.
In form, this item echoes another "I'm Tired" piece written in 2005 by Lt. Col. Joe Repya, who like Robert Hall is also a political candidate and veteran.
