Listened to Dick's rebuttal today. I think Maddox's behavior has been pretty deplorable, though I will probably still listen to and enjoy Best Debate when it's good. At the same time, it annoys me that Dick holds up "SATIRE!" as this massive shield that is supposed to protect him from any blowback that comes from some of his more reprehensible statements. Painting him as an advocate of sexual assault or victim-blamer is unfair, but in the context of his own show he's still said some pretty nasty stuff that had no humor or satirical angle and seemed pretty sincere to me ("No man wants to be in a relationship with a woman"). It's hard for me to feel a great deal of sympathy for him. He's being hung for a crime he didn't commit (the rape stuff, not the embezzlement claims which are clearly bullshit). I don't really care though because he's committed other crimes and suffered no punishment.
Mostly agree with you, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who found episodes like the one with Mr. Velvet horrible. The concept of the show itself is wonky. A search for a new cohost? What? It's a shame Tim Changzzz can't be on the show, though I have a feeling he would probably work better as Mr. Bust-Maddox's-balls than Dick's cohost. He used to have Robin Higgins, which was good to counter his macho bravado. Too bad she hasn't been on for a while.
When the description for the first episode was "Dick chats with noted feminist blogger," I was so excited and thought there would be fireworks. But for whatever reason, even when Dick invites co-hosts who probably disagree with him deeply, they don't ever call him out on his bullshit. Denzel is clearly not on the Trump-train like Dick, but would rather have fun busting on Hillary Clinton than address the elephant in the room. Lenora Claire, Joan Ford, Allegra Ringo, and Robin Higgins have also let his sexism slide pretty immensely. Maybe it's just because Dick never takes an adversarial tone at all though....to his credit he certainly lets other people voice opposing viewpoints without starting a huge emotional argument.
There's a downside to that too, though. He let Lenora Claire come on and talk about how awful it is to have a stalker and the ways laws need to be changed. Great. Then next week Mr. Velvet comes on and unironically voices the opinion that Lenora isn't being honest and probably did something to entice or egg on the clearly mentally ill stalker that made her life a living hell. Dick says nothing.
[EDIT] My fear is that Sean might not appear on Maddox's podcast anymore. In last week's episode of Dick's podcast he was on the verge of taking Dick's side on a conversation about Maddox, and I'm worried that Maddox, if the allegations are true, is going to threaten him to cut him out of the show if he continues.
I don't think that it really matters if Sean is on Best Debate anymore. I honestly worry more about Rucka Rucka getting kicked off because of how regularly he eviscerates Maddox. Listening to him rake Maddox over the coals for his "I'm great because I don't have ads on my website - buy Kendall & Hyde!" bullshit was immensely satisfying, but still a pretty big embarrassment for Maddox. I suspect he will keep Sean around since he's probably too lazy to find a new audio engineer anyway.
If Sean left The Dick Show, I think it might actually get better. I like having him on and think he can be very funny, but I hate that he's basically just there to agree with Dick and reinforce his worldview. Sean pretty regularly took potshots at Maddox on Biggest Problem, but almost never puts Dick in his crosshairs, even if it's just playful ball-busting.
