Headlines include :
Hollywood Unites to Defend Polanski
Pleading guilty to unlawful sex with an underage girl — the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year-old — isn’t stopping Hollywood from ginning up an indignation campaign over the possibility of fugitive director Roman Polanski being held accountable for his crimes. Yes, these are the values of those who control the most powerful propaganda device ever created. Which begs a question: If his unspeakable deed doesn’t meet the standard, what exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin?
Roman Polanski arrest: Hollywood unites in his defence
Celebrities, diplomats unite behind convicted child-raping degenerate
Not all liberals are willing to declare more outrage over arresting a child rapist than they are about the crime of drugging and anally raping a 13 yr-old.
Eugene Robinson over at Wapo, takes on those Hollywood pigs that would dare bemoan the fact that a child rapist was actually arrested after hiding from his sentencing for over 30 yrs.
Much has been made of the fact that Polanski's victim, now 45, has said she no longer feels any anger toward him and does not want to see him jailed. But it's irrelevant what the victim thinks and feels as a grown woman. What's important is what she thought and felt at age 13, when the crime was committed. Those who argue that there's something unjust about Polanski's arrest are essentially accepting his argument that it's possible for a 13-year-old girl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, to "consent" to sex with a man in his 40s. Or maybe his defenders are saying that drugging and raping a child is simply not such a big deal.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge deal. Even in France, it should be a big deal. This isn't about a genius who is being hounded for flouting society's hidebound conventions. It's about a rich and powerful man who used his fame and position to assault -- in every sense, to violate -- an innocent child.
And it's about a man who ran away rather than face the consequences of his actions. Before any sentence could be imposed, he absconded like a weasel to live a princely life in France.
That's the sort of protagonist, a great director like Polanski must realize, who doesn't deserve a happy ending.
Not all liberals are so willing to stand behind Polanski and good for Robinson to stating this so clearly.
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