A Right-Left consensus building on Polanski

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Every once in a while, an issue comes along that has such clear-cut implications that it rearranges the usual political alignments — perhaps especially so when the issue has little to do with electoral politics. Such is the case with Roman Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland on the basis of a 32-year-old arrest warrant for jumping bail and fleeing the US after admitting to statutory rape — and committing rape and sodomy on a 13-year-old girl he’d first drugged. After an initial blast of outrage from the Hollywood Left, those cultural elites find themselves further and further marginalized as the vast majority of people from across the political spectrum vent their own outrage over the shabby and despicable excuses offered for Polanski’s actions.

First, the Washington Post editors offer their measured offense at Polanski defenders, and calls the fugitive a coward:

Roman Polanski’s apologists — as typified by the comments of Swiss filmmaker Otto Weisser, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, film and TV celebrity Whoopi Goldberg — don’t let basic facts, or even simple decency for that matter, get in the way of their defense of this notorious director. Ever since Mr. Polanski’s arrest Saturday in Switzerland on a fugitive warrant in a case involving sex with a 13-year-old girl, a number of Hollywood luminaries — Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, David Lynch, to name but a few — are demanding his release. This follows the equally misguided defense of Mr. Polanski by European political and cultural authorities. Thankfully, a backlash is developing, fueled by the public getting a clear understanding of Mr. Polanski’s sordid crime and his cowardice in evading justice.

What matters is not that Mr. Polanski is 76 or that he has a talent for filmmaking or that his own life has been filled with unspeakable horrors or that the case is decades old. It doesn’t even matter that his underage victim, now grown up, forgives him. What matters is that this man admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old whose undisputed testimony details how he gave her champagne and Quaaludes, got her naked in a hot tub and wouldn’t listen as she — terrified — said no. He was originally charged with sodomy and rape but agreed to plead to a lesser offense. He jumped bail and fled the country out of fear the judge would give him more prison time than the paltry 42 days supposedly promised by prosecutors. He has been living with impunity and in luxury ever since.

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