Five is the magic number if you're a credibly accused sexual predator. You have to wait roughly five months before efforts are made to resurrect your public image.

EMILY's List president Stephanie Schriock and former Obama adviser David Axelrod, for example, launched a rousing defense this week of former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who was first accused of sexual misconduct in November 2017.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that former CBS News and PBS anchor Charlie Rose, who was also first accused of wrongdoing in November of last year, is receiving similar treatment this week. He has served his time. It’s time for the rehabilitation of yet another a credibly accused serial harasser!

To that end, here’s a tearjerker of a profile published Thursday by the Hollywood Reporter, titled “Charlie Rose's Life Now: ‘Broken,’ ‘Brilliant’ and ‘Lonely.’”

Stop. You’re breaking my heart.

The author likely didn’t intend for his profile to read like it was written by Rose’s public relations team. But the article, which is mostly a collection of glossy quotes from “more than a dozen of Rose's friends, neighbors and former associates” and “proprietors of his current hangouts,” ends up reading exactly like that.

The way the Hollywood Reporter tells it, Rose is “one of TV’s most feted journalists,” who one associate says is, “focusing on trying to understand, [both] events and other people's perception of them." The former CBS anchors was a “legendary man-about-town in addition to one of the most iconic broadcast journalists.” Rose is “fearless: He'll talk to anybody and he knows everybody,” the story reads, citing an anonymous “media executive friend.”

Rose is now a “struggling man.” When Rose, whose “journalistic accomplishments remain unassailable,” was fired last year from CBS and PBS, he left a “gaping hole.”

“He is open, he talks to anyone — waiters and people on the street — and he has a lot of charisma. But I suspect that he does not have many deep friends,” yet another nameless “media insider” says.

A total of 17 women have accused Rose of sexual misconduct, which ranges from inappropriate comments, to walking around naked in front of them, to fantasizing openly about them naked, to making one colleague watch a sex scene with him from the movie "The Secretary."

The Hollywood Reporter profile has two settings: Glowing praise and sympathy. Because, like Franken, Rose is the real victim, or something. The story goes on to characterize public comments made by Rose’s former colleagues immediately after the scandal broke as the “kind of disappointment that can only stem from a place of utmost respect.”

When "Charlie Rose" staffers were sacked last winter, the article adds, “Rose made sure to be on hand to personally deliver the news to each one.”
Stop. I’m getting misty-eyed.

The profile ends with these absurd notes [emphasis added]: “Today, because of both his age and the allegations, few expect Rose to come back and once again host conversations with hard-to-wrangle CEOs, celebrities, cardinals, comedians and the occasional astrophysicist. These days, as [friend and lawyer David Boies] tells THR, Rose has taken on his ultimate assignment: ‘He's one of the best interviewers in our lifetime, and he is now asking questions of himself.’”

Yes. Here’s hoping Charlie Rose manages to get that big scoop on Charlie Rose.