Over the weekend, Academy Award winning director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland with plans to extradite back to the United States. Polanski has been on the lam for 32 years after pleading guilty to raping a 13 year old girl. Despite the reprehensible act, he has remained a hero to many in liberal Hollywood – even as late as 2002, he was given the Best Director Oscar for his film The Pianist. France has refused to give Polanski to America and given him a safe haven, not surprisingly they have reacted angrily to what the Swiss have done. It’s shocking and damn sickening to review the facts of the case and then read the opinions on many mainstream liberal websites.
First, lets review the facts of the Polanski case (Courtesy of The Smoking Gun, you can read transcripts of grand jury and plea testimony, HERE. Warning, content is very graphic): In 1977, Polanski asked a woman if he could privately photograph her 13 year old daughter for French Vogue magazine. In their first encounter, Polanski asked the girl to change in front of him and she obliged. That March, Polanski held a 2nd shoot with the girl at the home of Jack Nicholson (Jack was not at the home). At this shoot he took photos of the girl drinking champagne which she says got her drunk. Polanski brought her to a bed, where he then shared quaaludes with her. Despite drugging the young woman, she still testified that she tried to resist and refuse his advances on her, until finally she gave in – although of course, a 13 year old can not consent to any sexual acts. Polanski admitted to abusing her vaginally and anally among several other documented sexual acts.
Initially, Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, lewd acts on a child under the age of 14, perversion, sodomy, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. However, he was allowed to plea down to a single count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. The plea arrangement made with the prosecution would have forced him to undergo psychological testing but face minimal jail time. Regardless of the agreement, the judge in the case was hesitant to show the agreed leinancy in such a high profile case. Upon getting word that the judge would likely look to extend the prison term in the original guilty plea, Polanski fled to his native France.
So, there remains no doubt that Roman Polanski is guilty and never served time for his crime. But if you were to read some liberal blogs, you would think HE was the victim. For example:
John Farr, Huffington Post – “But the story of what Polanski suffered even before the unspeakable trauma of having his pregnant wife Sharon Tate butchered in the spooky twilight of the turbulent sixties makes me believe that overall, he’s as much victim as predator himself…These horrors by no means excuse his crime, but they are mitigating factors, are they not?”
“This new arrest also smacks of a sneak attack on the now 76-year-old director, who’s been remarried to actress Emmanuelle Seigner for two decades. (He’s probably reformed by now , don’t you think?)”
“So, with all due contempt for child molesters in general, I hope the case will be handled expeditiously, and if and when sentenced, that Polanski ultimately receives a measure of leniency. In other words- don’t throw away the key.”
Joan Z. Shore – 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. Polanski, now 76, has been living in France for over thirty years, and has been traveling and working in Europe unhindered, but the Swiss acted on an old extradition treaty with the U.S. and seized him! The Swiss Justice Ministry will decide whether to extradite him to the United States.”
“The judge in the 1977 statutory rape case is dead. Polanski had agreed at the time to a plea bargain, but then the judge reneged on it. Polanski has tried to appeal.”
“But there is more to this story. 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.” NOTE: Consent age in California is now 18 and was 16 in 1977. The fact Joan flippantly uses “seduced” to describe the raping of a child angers me to no end.
ArkDem14 – DailyKos – “I want to know more than anything why Los Angeles is still wasting time and manpower on this case, more than thirty years old, considering all the other problems the city has and this thirty plus year old case.”
“Regardless, it seems trashy to arrest him at a lifetime achievement award that they invited too, and many people are furious over the lack of respect it showed. Polanksi deserves more respect than this; it is quite obvious that this three decade witch-hunt has run long enough. I advise any one interested in this, anyone offended by this lack of respect, this zealotry, to lobby for his release or lobby for a pardon after all these long years of being hounded around the world and kept from returning home.”
NOTE: If you check the above link, he does have a poll in which 57% say Polanski does deserves to go to jail, 22% say No, 12% say Maybe, and 7% have no opinion.
Anne Applebaum – Washington Post – POST TITLED – The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski
“Here are some of the facts: Polanski’s crime — statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl — was committed in 1977. The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children. There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.”
Patrick Goldstein – LA Times – “I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn’t enough.”
It’s almost bizarre that all defense pieces on Roman Polanski they tend to mention the cost to California taxpayers to re-open the case. This just sounds absurd coming from the most liberal, free-spending, bankrupt state in the union – prosecuting admitted child molesters is where they draw the line on spending. I feel sympathy for Polanski that he had to live through the horrific murder of his wife by Charles Manson’s followers. But no amount of tragedy justifies the criminal acts he admitted to back in 1977. Those supporting Polanski are flat out wrong. Polanski raped a 13 year old girl, and no mater if it was a 1 month ago, 32 years ago or 100 years ago – he deserves to serve time. And if you are conservative and try to live your life with some amount of morality but have been made to feel guilty about it – remember those that cast stones might be the same people who believe in the bullshit these left opinion blogs have posted publically.
3conservativebros
MacGregor
Johnny M
Timmy K
One more doozy that I read this evening from the Huffington Post – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-wolff/why-nab-roman-polanski-no_b_301864.html
This quote gets me: “Prosecutors are the scariest people in a democracy because they can have you arrested and put in jail. They can do this essentially at will, if arresting you suits their purposes. Alternatively, they can not arrest you if that suits their purposes.”
So true, except for the fact that you NEED TO COMMIT A CRIME, FIRST!!
For anyone to imply this man shouldn’t go to jail is absurd. He was arrested & admitted he raped a child. What more can the man do for the people in Hollywood to see he deserves to spend time in jail? Maybe if it would have happened to one of their children they’d feel differently.
Johnny, this lays out the facts well, and shows again, the vast difference between liberal and conservative thought.
Along with these voices from Huff Post and the likes, i heard a defense attorney on Oreilly say that he should not be brought back to the US and sentenced because the vicitm forgave him. Wtf….
ANother thing it shows is the types of people who write on Huff Post and other left wing media outlets, even the person’s own poll showed that most, about 75% either wanted him jailed or weren’t sure.
Pointing out stark examples of liberal “compassion” are important and must not be forgotten.
Stacy,
Exactly. Ive been trying to figure out why so many people are more concerned with what the motive was to finally arrest him rather than seeing justice finally being served. Ive decided its because so many liberals usually are more concerned with the “Why?” over the end goal. They need to understand what causes the result and it clouds their view of what is actually RIGHT. For example, the torture debate. The safety of Americans is not as big of a concern as digging up all the intel they can behind the decisions made by the Bush admin.
Here is the best-written piece that Ive read on this topic. The author actually quotes some of the same posts that I did above. I think this is what the logical thought process on Polanski should be: http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/
This is my favorite comment: But what of the now-45-year-old victim, who received a settlement from Polanski in a civil case, saying she’d like to see the charges dropped? Shouldn’t we be honoring her wishes above all else?
In a word, no. At least, not entirely. I happen to believe we should honor her desire not to be the subject of a media circus, which is why I haven’t named her here, even though she chose to make her identity public long ago. But as for dropping the charges, Fecke said it quite well: “I understand the victim’s feelings on this. And I sympathize, I do. But for good or ill, the justice system doesn’t work on behalf of victims; it works on behalf of justice.”
It works on behalf of the people, in fact — the people whose laws in every state make it clear that both child rape and fleeing prosecution are serious crimes. The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not — and at least in theory, does not — tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you’ve made.
Johnny,
If it really was a priority to the state of CA. the Justice Dept. or any other US legal arm, Polanski would have been snatched up long ago. I cite the recent upsurge in extraordinary rendition. I’m not responding to defend Polanski, I’m responding because I take issue with you and others constantly equating the term “liberal” with all things negative, a term that has for all intents and purposes become meaningless as opinionated talk radio shouting matches have come to dominate the radio and tv news shows, if they even qualify as such.
Did you know that there is such a person that is sociallly liberal and fiscally conservative, and the opposite. What would be nice is if the same sense of urgency would have been displayed less than 30 years ago before it became politically expedient to have him extradited. As usual this tiny representation of the “problem” which is our criminal justice system gets all sorts of attention and fanfare, even though we’re still attempting to deal with the repercussions of “three strikes, you’re out”. Of course nobody has the political cajones, except for a few like Jim Webb, Democrat (or should I say liberal) from VA.
This means in simple terms that scumbags such as the CA kidnapper that abducted and kept that girl for more than half of her life got a ten year sentence in lieu of what should have been fifty. Again, addressing the cause and not the symptom would be terrific.
Of course this post wouldn’t be complete without playing a little “liberal” devil’s advocate. You might want to do a little recreational reading in regard to prosecutors jail and crime if you think people need to commit crimes to be arrested. The state of Texas is a good place to start. My final suggestion, is rather than applying meaningless stereotypical labels that are far overused, maybe bring one back from the past that used to thrown around more than liberal… “Bleeding Heart”.
Gabe, im not exactly sure what your main points are.
From Johnny and Reality’s point of view, the left are the ones propping up Polanski, the left are the ones saying he’s paid his dues, the left are the ones saying that this wasnt “rape rape.”
As far as so called “Blue Dogs” they actually do exist. I would say that most men under 30 could be characterized as this, i have a number of friends who would fall under that label. There is nothing wrong with that, unless you are so socially liberal that you want to force your version of morality on to the traditional rest of the country. Obviously the same can be said for the far far right or religious, except they arent the loud ones.
Johnny, and I make some generalizations becuz A. They normally are true.. And B, to ignore them is to never make hard decisions or ignore common sense.
Gabe –
I agree with you that labels are far overused. Was it a cheap way for me to describe the examples I quoted? Yes. But the fact remains, I spent hours reviewing websites and searching for articles – and I found zero articles on conservative sites that even attempted to defend Polanski, and numerous on liberal sites or by liberal authors in newspapers. Do I think the majority of progressives agree with these posts? Absolutely not. But I still question why anyone would feel the need to at all?
MacGregor, you, and I are in a similar position. All of us enjoy (sadistically, perhaps) listening to the opposing viewpoint. We dont need someone like-minded to tell us how to think. And because we listen to the opposing viewpoint we are sick of the opposition using terms such as “liberal” in your case, or “conservative” in our case as slander rather than a descriptor. It does become tiresome. Nowadays, Im kinda numb to it because I do spend so much time looking for links and interesting articles to write about.
And I was a social moderate/fiscal conservative for a long time, even recently; I voted Barack into the Senate in ’06. It has only been the past few years that Ive really started turning more conservative across the board. I think this is pretty common among many guys my age that went through college. Many friends that I speak to my age seem to go through the same progression – becoming more conservative as they leave the education world and get further into the professional world.
The arguement that the victum has forgiven him and doesn’t want him jailed is the part of this story that bugs me most. So what, she was paid by him to get over it. That does not excuse what he did. I don’t care how old he is, don’t care how many years ago it was, don’t care about any of the excuses or justifications that are being used. As usual, the liberal media is on the wrong side of this one… Bring him back, throw his ass in jail and let him feel what it is like to be raped….
MacGregor, I’ll boil it down to one main point. It gets old, the constant generalizations, liberal media this, liberal media that. This dead horse wouldn’t have to be continually beat if the damn laws on the books were enforced. I gave a very recent example. So, what would be terrific is if our broken justice system was getting the same type of attention as repetetive media opinion, and the ire it draws. Why not put the focus on changing the problem, which is: The legal system, not unlike the tax code is a friggin unresponsive labyrinth. I bet if all the three strike pot smokers were beatin the street we’d have room for a bunch of rapists.
Mac, If the media was is liberal as you assert, 50% of America wouldn’t have thought that Iraqis were on the planes that hit the twin towers.
Gabe, you honestly cannot be putting forth the notion that the media is not overwhelmingly liberal in mindset and ideology??? If you truly believe this then you have lost the ability to look at anything objectively.
The left owns the MAIN STREAM MEDIA, Unions, High Schools, Universities, Newspapers, etc etc, etc. Trying to say there is not a huge media bias based on (i assume you would say) AM talk radio, Fox News, and some conservative websites, is just a ridiculously unlearned position.
I believe you points are very valid concerning upending our legal system in specific ways including a tax overhaul, but in our polarized system that is not possible in the near term.
The reason that conservatives like me HAVE TO CONTINUALLY point to media bias is exactly becuz it is so deep and pervasive. MOST American dont follow politics beyond a short snippet on a website, or a blurb from CNN, or a lecture from a Professor, or from every other mainstream outlet except Foxnews…….The lack of political knowledge and understanding of the world amongst the avg uninformed person is shocking. I obviously am leaning conservative right, but try my best to see/listen/read both sides. Most dont and only get one side, to act like the scales are leveled in any way is preposterous.
I’m not putting forth any notion, I’m asking a question, which you’re free to answer as well. I haven’t looked at any recent studies, crunched any numbers etc. I don’t see myself as somebody who idly floats notions. If we were going to answer this question constructively versus throw platitudes and axioms at eachother, we’d need to establish criteria against which to measure hypothesis. Don’t got the time for it. I’ll say this, most of our media is garbage because a few minutes at best is dedicated to worthwhile news that people of either political stripe would be better off knowing. I’ll remind you though, as I’ve said before: News organizations actually break stories, and don’t continually overtalk their guests. Macneil, Lehrer News hour was the best I’ve seen nationally whether you agree or disagree. By the way, if I don’t agree with your assertions one way or another it doesn’t mean I’ve lost the ability to be objective. Even facts and statistics can be used to support various stances on issues, that’s the nature of politics. If you think I’m going to sing the praises of CNN you are mistaken. As you’ve probably noticed most local media reflects the views of it’s residents. eg, The county where I live is two thirds Republican, the radio stations and news papers echo those sentiments.
This survey is a bit dated, but I think it is insightful. 444 were sent surveys, of which about a third responded. Anyway, I think the liberal media claim is a little worn out. You obviously disagree, but this is some actual info.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447
Gabe,
“we’d need to establish criteria against which to measure hypothesis.” How about we use common sense?
Since this study was done over 10 years ago i dont think its relevant to today’s discussion. The media has come incredible far in the past decade, especially since the advent of a non left leaning channel, fox news, and the 24 hour news channels.. Thats like trying to correlate democratic stances of today with JFK’s of 50 years ago, they just dont add up.
I find it quite hard to understand that you even question whether or not this bias exists. I have heard this from other democrats, and its usually followed by something about fox news or rush limbaugh.
How about just the fact that fox news, leaning probably 60-65 right, is HATED by nearly all democrats, to the point that the average person believes foxnews is some far right extremist channel. How about the treatment of Sarah Palin? How about the coverage, or lack thereof of the tea parties? How about the fact that people even compare Olbermann and Maddow to Oreilly and Hannity, given the fact that the FNC shows annihilate their MSNBC competitors and have lively debate every night compared to the one side hit jobs shows on MSNBC?
How about the media treatment of Obama vs. McCain? How about the fact that FNC and WSJ are doing so well compared to their counterparts? How about the fact that journalists who recognized themselves as “atheist” occur at a rate something like 5 times higher the general public? How about the coverage of the “wars” under Bush compared to Obama? How many more example are there?
UCLA Study
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
Fairness in comparison
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/11/pew-research-center-confirms-media-bias.html
MacGregor, First I realize the study is dated. I used it for the valid assertions it makes. Interestingly you just mentioned a main one in a more recent post, “your local newspaper”. Obviously you’ve arrived at a pre-disposition as far as this exchange goes. I do wish you’d quit inferring that I’m a fan/apologist for MSNBC. I think both MSNBC and Fox suck. Why? Because they don’t break stories! My mother and step dad both spent their working life in the papers, news-desk on up to editor. It sucks when you have to “dig” for important news, or have to wade through partisan bs. There is a big difference between a news man/woman, and a bloviating media circus clown.
Gabe,
I didnt mean to elude to you being a fan of MSNBC, i know you think much more deeply and arent as ignorantly biased. And follow a hell of a lot more politicals than the garb on MSNBC. And i do agree there is a big difference bt commmentators who are are ratings wanting morons and real news. I just questioned how you cannot think the MSM is not blatantly biased, and provided a few simple examples for them.
There is quite an undeniable standard given to conservatives regarding most issues. The stuff going on to Rush Limbaugh righ tnow is another huge example. Any freedom loving person should hate the misquotes and lies being spread about him and how his views somehow disqualify him from making an investment. Love him or hate him, this is wrong. I hate Mark Cuban and his views, but neve rin a million years would try and say he doesnst have the right to own a business…