Roman Polanski was arrested yesterday in Switzerland for a crime he should have long since been punished for. Instead, he fled, and has been hiding in Europe.
Rather than be pleased that a rapist has finally been brought to justice, it seems like many on the left want to act as apologists for Polanski - it was the judge's fault or it was so very long ago or he's so much great artwork that he should be forgiven. Two blogs front-paged on Huffington Post make these very cases.
It does not matter who he is. It matters what he did. Rape is rape.
First, we have Joan Shore, who is listed as the "Co-founder, Women Overseas for Equality." Ms. Shore, rather than decrying the rape culture that allowed Polanski to get away with this or decrying the crime itself has a different target:
The Swiss.
Seriously. They are the ones in her eyes that have acted shamefully. She's right of course, but for all the wrong reasons. The Swiss did act shamefully - every other time Polanski came to Switzerland and they did not arrest him.
Then we have John Farr, whose blog entry is titled "Leniency for Polanski." In Farr's eyes, the horrible events Polanski witnessed as a child, followed by the death of his wife, somehow excuses the fact that he committed rape. As if no other child rapist in jail had a traumatic life before the crime.
Here are the facts: Polanski plied alcohol on a 13-year-old girl he brought to Jack Nicholson's house for a "photo shoot," then forced her to engage in oral sex, forced drugs on her, violated her vaginally and then anally raped her. No orifice left untouched on an innocent 13-year-old girl. He then was brought before the court, somehow worked out a plea bargain that would have had him free after less than two months, and when the judge realized the absurdity of such a lenient sentence, Polanski fled.
So, of course, there's a documentary out that makes the judge the villain and has an interview with the victim saying she's moved on, as if that's somehow enough for Polanski to be let to go free, and defenders of Polanski are latching on to that documentary as if it's the Holy Grail.
Before you defend this sick bastard, read the facts. He's not some crusader for justice that stuck it to The Man when he fled so that he could continue his beautiful work - he's a child rapist that we know has violated in horrible ways at least one girl, and we have no idea how many other victims he might have silenced with money along the way.
The only heroes here are the victim for being a survivor and the Swiss officials that finally decided enough was enough.
UPDATE: For those wondering what liberals I am talking about, here is an email I just got, minus the name:
I understand the point you are making about the Polanski case.
However, it's not as simplistic as you, and many Americans want it to be.
First of all, if having sex is such a heinous crime, how much greater torturing, lying to a nation about a fake threat leading to the death and devastation of hundreds of thousands of innocent people!
So why are Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld not picked up for arrest wherever they go?
Few will disagree that the world's #1 purveyor of pornography, the United States of America, has a problem with sex, as when a singer's nipple appeared for half a second on TV and all hell broke loose, when it would hardly have been noticed in any other developed country, or when one President is implacably impeached for adultery, while the next one never had to fret one second about paying for the massive crimes he commited.
Sex is private business. So the girl was not quite 14. At that age I, and most people my age were not only pubescent, but experienced.
If every pop or rock musician who had been sexually involved with a young teenager under influence of drugs and booze was to be arrested, the American music industry would stop in its tracks, the Grammy and Rock'nRoll Hall of Fame ceremonies would have to be cancelled, and for the next few decades.
Polanski effing did time. The matter was settled privately between the two parties. The woman believes ademently the case has gone too far (mostly due to the accused's fame: sex-scandals-sell). Polanski is not in any way a danger to society. He and his wife and kids are a vital and integral part of French and European culture since decades, and no one here sees him in any shape or form as a "pedophile", "deviant" or "criminal".
I, as an American living in Europe, am shocked and amazed by the consensually ugly witch-hunting/lynching tone of most posts on liberal sites like HuffPo (I don't dare to look at wingnut media. How much do you want to bet Glenn Beck will demand the electric chair for Polanski?)
It's still a little too easy for Americans, three hundred years after the days of "The Scarlet Letter", to get hysterical about what goes on sexually between two people, while all the actual criminal greed and deception, the only thing thing that should be our business, is left off the hook.
You will not find a European person including feminists who doesn't think this arrest, and the way it was made, is brutal, stupid and unnecessary.
If that's truly the case, I thank God I am not European. Somehow I doubt the entire continent agrees with this on rape though.