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By Andrea Peyser
December 22, 2014

Camille Cosby is the 'Ninny of the Year'

The year 2014 should go down in history as The Year of the Ninny.

Not since Rihanna forgave singer Chris Brown, the unspeakable batterer who turned her face into mush, have we seen such a rush to excuse behavior that should result in certain guys being permanently neutered.

Not since Huma Abedin excused the compulsive sexting of her skanky spouse, the ridiculous ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, have we seen such a dutiful crop of doormats standing by their men in Hail Mary bids to save freaky marriages or protect the hides of miserable males.

We haven’t seen such a gaggle of presumably smart gals making choices that are not just stupid, but downright demented, since Hillary Rodham Clinton overlooked the philandering of her then-president husband, Bill. She even partly blamed her failings as a wife for her hub’s ’90s affair with “narcissistic loony toon” White House intern Monica Lewinsky, as her close pal, the late Diane Blair, recounted her words in a journal unearthed this year.

Lewinsky herself joined the ranks of the nincompoops this year when she proclaimed in a magazine essay, in a TV documentary and in a speech that her married lover wasn’t responsible for turning her surname into a synonym for a sex act she performed on her knees while fully clothed.

She blamed the media, forces within the Clinton administration, a prosecutor and those who failed to hire the ditzy dame, among others, for making her life a living hell. But in a self-pitying essay she penned in Vanity Fair magazine, Lewinsky gave a pass to the former leader of the free world, with whom, she insisted, she engaged in “a consensual relationship.”

Janay Rice turned herself into a card-carrying ninny when she forgave her football-playing bruiser of a husband, Ray Rice, for knocking her unconscious in an Atlantic City, NJ, hotel and casino’s elevator in February. Both were seen on security videotapeobtained by ABC News making out after the attack with hands cuffed behind their backs. Ray and Janay were both initially charged with assault, but the case against Janay was dropped.

Running back Ray Rice was cut from theBaltimore Ravens and indefinitely suspended by the NFL, until an arbitrator last month reversed the punishment, ensuring he’ll play ball again.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” Janay Rice told “Today” show host Matt Lauer.

Forgetting to pay the electric bill is a mistake. Beating a woman senseless is on another plane of infamy.

But from stiff competition, I nominate for the title Ninny of the Year — Camille Cosby.

She demonstrates that, after more than 50 years of marriage, a woman can believe that even a 77-year-old man with love handles is as sexy as a chiseled Chippendales dancer.

Or maybe money has something to do with it.

At least two dozen women — I’ve lost count — have accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them, or trying to, since the 1960s. (He’s denied this, and has never been charged with a crime.) One of thelatest females to claim that the star of TV’s “The Cosby Show” slipped drugs into her drink, in this case a cup of cappuccino, is the former supermodel Beverly Johnson. She wrote in Vanity Fair that she was not sexually assaulted in the 1980s incident, but she said she came forward to prevent Cosby from attacking others.

Last week, Camille Cosby, 69, spoke up — and claimed that her husband was the victim here.

“The man I met, and fell in love with, and whom I continue to love, is the man you all knew through his work,” she wrote in a statement. “He is a kind man, a generous man, a funny man, and a wonderful husband, father and friend. He is the man you thought you knew.”

Then she compared the allegations of sexual assault against Bill Cosby to a woman’s now-discredited account in Rolling Stonemagazine in which she claimed she was gang-raped on the University of Virginia campus. Seriously.

“None of us will ever want to be in the position of attacking a victim,” Camille Cosby’s statement concluded. “But the question should be asked — who is the victim?”

This woman has long overlooked her husband’s admitted sexual indiscretions while bearing him four girls and a boy. (The Cosbvs’ only son, Ennis, was murdered in 1997.) I don’t know if she truly believes her words, or if she’s a Stockholm-syndrome sufferer who has convinced herself that Bill Cosby can do no wrong. But by comparing her husband’s avalanche of accusers to a lady who made a false rape claim, Camille Cosby helps to ensure that no one will believe the cries of women who’ve experienced genuine sexual attacks.

After living as the wife of a rich entertainer, with houses, cars and fine clothes, I suppose it’s easier for her to defend her man like a lioness than it is to face the possibility that she might be living a lie. Camille Cosby should stop being a ninny.

Let the truth come out.