Questing for Atlantis

One of the big items in the new is that Roman Polanski has finally been arrested for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl 32 years ago.

I would never have thought this was an issue worthy of debate. The girl was 13, he pumped her full of champagne and quaaludes, and she testified she repeatedly said no. How anyone can possibly defend Polanski and his decade long evasion of justice is unimaginable to me.

But it’s happening.

Reason’s Nick Gillespie has highlighted a few examples.

From The Los Angeles Times:

With the state Legislature forced to make dramatic cuts in the prison budget and a three-judge federal panel having recently ordered California lawmakers to release as many as 40,000 inmates in response to the scandalous overcrowding of the California state prison system, it seems like an especially inauspicious time for the L.A. County district attorney’s office to be spending some of our few remaining tax dollars seeing if it can finally, after all these years, put Roman Polanski behind bars.

As Gillespie rightly notes, this is completely absurd, and were the offender a Catholic priest rather than a celebrated filmmaker the paper would likely be singing a different tune.

But that pales in comparison to this nauseating sentiment from The Huffington Post:

Arresting Roman Polanski the other day in Zurich, where he was to receive an honorary award at a film festival, was disgraceful and unjustifiable….

The 13-year old model “seduced” by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It’s probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence.

I met Polanski shortly after he fled America and was filming Tess in Normandy. I was working in the CBS News bureau in Paris, and I accompanied Mike Wallace for a Sixty Minutes interview with Polanski on the set. Mike thought he would be meeting the devil incarnate, but was utterly charmed by Roman’s sobriety and intelligence.

Joan Z. Shore, Women Overseas for Equality

I don’t care if how good his movies are. There is nothing that excuses his actions – and that includes his surviving the Holocaust!  And if you don’t believe me, read this bit of testimony from Polanski’s victim. Megan McArdle linked to it earlier (warning it is most definitely not for the squeamish).

A. Then he lifted up my legs and went in through my anus.

Q. What do you mean by that?

A. He put his penis in my butt.

. . . .

Q. Do you know whether he had a climax?

A. Yes.

Q. And how do you know that?

A. Because I could kind of feel it and it was in my underwear. It was in my underwear. It was on my butt and stuff.

Q. When you say that, you believe that he climaxed in your anus?

A. Yes.

Q. What does climax mean?

A. That his semen came out.

Q. Do you know what semen is?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see some semen or feel some semen?

A. I felt it.

Q. Where did you feel it?

A. I felt it on the back of my behind and in my underwear when I put them on.

Yeah. And why exactly is anyone trying to make us feel sorry for Polanski?

EDIT: I just saw this post at League of Ordinary Gentlemen and it makes me feel like I ought to clarify slightly. My disgust is with Polanski and those defending him/condemning his being extradited, etc. I have no disagreement with Freddie on the importance of protecting his rights (but that being said, and as the post notes, he entered the guilty plea, so it shouldn’t really be an issue).