The Roman Polanski case is causing all sorts of people to agree who normally would check if the other said the sun rose in the east. Ginmar has a list of Polanski petition supporters, as does Ed Driscoll (and Fox News). Feministe and Shakesville, list much the same bunch of outrageous pro-Polanski comments as La Shawn Barber, Michelle Malkin and Patterico (who also quotes Steve Lopez highly approvingly despite normally disagreeing with him). I could list many more but I think I've made the point. It really looks like it must be snowing in hell.
It occurs to me that this is yet another moment where feminists should realize that many of their "progressive" allies are actually just as bad as the right-wing chauvinists they regularly protest. There is a significant chunk, a large majority I'd guess, of the right who really do believe that the rule of law should apply equaly to all, whether hobo or millionaire director, and that crimes like rape and especially pedophile rape should be punished severely. On the other hand there seems to be a big chunk of the left who think that if your political heart is in the right place then you can get away with rape, womanslaughter (E Kennedy), and of course marital infidelity (J Edwards, W Clinton).
I'm going to finish with one minor detail - I forget where I read it but I saw it mentioned somewhere that it seems quite likely Polanski brought this arrest on himself. Apparently the US authorities had more or less given up trying to get him extradited when he got some lawyers in the US to push for the case to be officially dismissed. That seems to have caused various parts of US officialdom to wake up and read what he was on the lam for. And hence a renewed push to catch and extradite the scumbag.
Blog Home : September 2009 : Permalink