WaPo Columnist Has Undisclosed Conflict of Interest on Roman Polanski Matter, namely that she’s married to Poland’s foreign minister, who was lobbying for Polanski’s freedom. In her WaPo column, Anne Applebaum finds Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland “outrageous.”
For those of you not familiar with Polanski’s criminal act, LaShawn has the condensed version
In 1977, 44-year-old movie director Roman Polanski pled guilty to raping a drunk and drugged 13-year-old girl. After plea-bargaining the drug/rape/sodomy charges down to unlawful sexual conduct with a child under 14 and serving 42 days for the evaluation period, Polanski fled to England, then France, to avoid extradition. He’d been on the run ever since. Until September 26. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland.
James Joyner has more,
Patrick Frey, an assistant district attorney in LA whose office is seeking Polanski’s extradition, notes that Polanski “pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, in return for the agreement to dismiss several other charges, including rape and sodomy.” He and a co-blogger remind us of the graphic details of the case, which belie the notion that Polanski is some sort of victim. Let’s just say that the girl in question was drugged and the encounter was otherwise decidedly less than romantic. See also the [NSFW] victim’s grand jury testimony, which makes clear the sex was forcible and that, even drugged with alcohol and Quaaludes, she explicitly denied consent. Which, of course, a 13-year-old can not give under the law.
The WaPo has no excuse for not revealing that Anne Applebaum is married to a man lobbying for Polanski’s release.
As for Polanski, I don’t care how good his movies are, or how tragic his life is/was, or what. He should serve time in jail. Whether the victim wanted no further legal action does not matter, since, as James points out, rape is a felony, not a tort. But let Kieran Healy pour some scorn on his defenders:
Puritanical Americans simply do not have the enlightened attitude toward wine at the dinner table, quaaludes, and child rape that the Europeans do.
Among the Europeans, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who, as Erik will remind you, “wrote an autobiographical “novel” about going on trips to Asia for sex with young boys.”
Does the reaction of Europeans surprise anyone? These are the types that poo-pooed (and felt sympathy for!) poor Gerard Depardieu who admitted (admitted!!) that he spent a lot of time in his youth raping women because, essentially, that’s what someone in his circumstances did.
> Puritanical Americans simply do not have the enlightened attitude toward wine at the dinner table, quaaludes, and child rape that the Europeans do.
Well, true. I mean, look at the WaPo’s comments on the ACORN videos (emphasis mine):
“With ACORN, The Post wrote about it two days after the first of several explosive hidden-camera videos were aired showing the group’s employees giving tax advice to young conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp.”
Or how about the NYTimes’ take on them (emphasis mine, once again):
“[The reporter Scott] Shane said he thought it was correct to approach the Acorn sting as a political story. Absent that aspect, he said, the discussion of prostitution by low-level employees was not compelling news.”
You see, this story was all about free tax advice and discussions of victimless crimes like prostitution and the like — And here *I* thought it was a tale of people — Americans — being told about a plan to bring 13 to 15yo girls in from outside of the country to be forced to work in brothels as prostitutes… I guess that part only upsets stuck-in-the-mud “puritans”.
Sorry, I resist such “enlightenment”. And I plan to continue that resistance. After all, dissent is the “highest form of patriotism” — even when that’s “code” for “racist opposition to a black PotUS”
After all. Obama knows what we all need, doesn’t he?