Can We Still Trust Anne Applebaum? Her Irrational Defense of Polanski
By now, there have been scores of terrific comments on the Polanski controversy. But perhaps the best single line was offered on it by Jay Leno. “It’s not as if he committed a real crime,” Leno said, “like colorizing a black and white movie.” That comment reveals the mindset of the Hollywood elite, for whom anal rape of a 13-year-old drugged with Quaaludes is something to be forgiven. This is especially true when committed by a celebrated director whose status as a Holocaust survivor offers him lifetime protection from having to pay for his own criminal behavior.
The usually astute Anne Applebaum, whose columns on political matters and the crimes of Communism are second to none, also joined in on behalf of Polanski’s defense. Writing in a Washington Post blog, Applebaum offered the following unique set of defenses: First, there “is evidence of judicial misconduct.” Since she wrote that line, however, new information has been released that indicates the testimony offered in last year’s documentary about Polanski, which for many people proved judicial misconduct, has been withdrawn by the talking head, the L.A. prosecutor in charge of the Polanski judicial misconduct allegations.
An article by attorney Marcia Clark (of the O.J. prosecution) on The Daily Beast reveals that the former prosecutor, David Wells, lied on camera when he said he had advised the judge on what course to take in order to send Polanski back to prison. “It never happened,” Wells said, and that statement undermines the heart of Polanski’s legal appeal. Wells said the director told him to make that statement, that the film would never air in the United States, and that “it made a better story if I said I’d told the judge what to do.”
Second, Applebaum argues that Polanski has already paid for his crime in many ways. He did not know the girl’s real age (a great excuse that reveals only the stupidity of those who repeat it). He has legal fees. He has suffered “professional stigma” and cannot return to the United States. What great suffering! The man jet sets around the world, is lionized by his own community of film world acolytes — who hardly show that he has suffered any stigma at all — earns a fortune for widely acclaimed films, and we are supposed to now see him as a victim.
“Does she want her readers to take her seriously in the future?”
I lost respect for her when she came out for Barack Obama in 2008. Needless to add, people like me have been totally vindicated. We saw through Obama immediately. It was patently obvious that he was shallow, poorly read, despised America, and would continue employing race card tactics. Only an intellectually compromised and superficial human being who wanted to be hip and with it might think otherwise. In back of Applebaum’s mind, she places her wet finger into the air to see which way the wind blows. Oh well, I’m sure the pay is good.
I am thinking that Anne is defending the judiciary at a very high price. Lets face it, what Polanski did is on the record, whether there are people who do not want to see the details, so as long as the judiciary is under fire, this reduces their legitimacy.
For there is a difference between a legal system and a justice system. A legal system is what the world is saddled with, and frankly it isn’t worth saving. But, the justice system has a higher standard that fewer lawyers could satisfy, which closes a number of doors of how litigious the United States has become. Which, to the fears of some, would result, somehow, in the guilty getting away.
“Can We Still Trust Anne Applebaum?”
Still? Why would I have ever trusted her?
If we applied Anne Applebaum’s bad childhood defense of Polanski to all celebrity criminals, Charles Manson would be a free man. Martha Stewart spent more time in jail for insider trading than Polanski has for raping a 13 year old girl.
Polanski admitted his guilt. Period. He now must pay for his crime no matter what the bleeding hearts like Applebaum might argue.
There has been a powerful movement in this country for many years now to legitimize sex with children. The people supporting Polanski are part of this movement, their wishes are transparent.
“Martha Stewart spent more time in jail for insider trading than Polanski has for raping a 13 year old girl.”
Martha Stewart is a disgusting capitalist. Roman Polanski, on the other hand, is a misunderstood genius possessing an advanced understanding concerning human sexuality. He is a victim of a reactionary and backward society. By the way, I am not joking. That’s exactly, on minimally a gut level, how the “elites” perceive the matter.
Please note the similar excuses provided on behalf of Kevin Jennings.
As I age, I am at times both astonished and sadly disillusioned with those who I used to regard as well read authoritative voices.
At the same time I have come to understand that they simply exist in a different moral universe – one to which I cannot abide. Sociopathic is the most extreme term that comes to mind, but as many disorders, I wonder if it exists in degrees?
This certainly seems the case here.
Asids from being morally bankrupt, Applebaum plays fast and loose with the facts. Her posts on the subject contain numerous errors of fact.
Just to cite one:
“There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age.”
Polanski testified under oath that he knew she was 13.
Guess Pulitzer Prizes don’t mean a whole lot.
Wow. Just wow.
As someone who:
A. Was molested by babysitters
B. Was physically and mentally abused by her mother
C. Was rape attempted by her own bio-father
D. Was acquaintance raped as a 17 year old virgin
E. Ended up in a mental institution at 18 years of age
F. I’d need to write a frickin’ novel to include the rest of my crap sammich I was dealt with growing up…
All I can say is that after the shit I experienced in life I’d never, ever, NEVER do to someone what was done to me! The mere thought makes me want to vomit. Some people will use their horrible past as an ‘excuse’ to do unimaginably horrible things to others.
Speaking of which, I think Mary Kay Letourneau should be rotting in prison.
Has the rough Beast arrived? Yes I think so. It’s hour has come at last.
Patrick Frey (patterico) has completely “pwnd” Appelbaum. When given a chance to stop, she has kept on digging. Sad to see. Her credibility is pretty much in shreds now.
What’s the problem with this case? It’s simple: The courts should put Polanski in Prison and the media should leave the girl the alone. See? That was easy.
9. JL,
I SO agree. Her name shouldn’t even need to be mentioned. She GAVE her testimony already! How awful to be eternally branded alongside your ‘rich-famous’ rapist?
So, I am more upset that a columnist like Anne Applebaum has somehow lost her senses and her moral compass than that the Hollywood elite — whom we all expect to rally around one of their own — has joined in the ruckus to free Polanski
Agreed. I found it hard to believe, when reading Applebaum’s lame rationalizations for Polanski, that this was the same person who had written “Gulag.” What happened to the passionate concern she had for the powerless victimized by the powerful?
The only thing I can think of is that Applebaum is wed to a Polish government official and the Poles are stubbornly defending Polanski because he is the most renowned director they have produced (he is not the only brilliant one, but the others are hardly known outside Poland, except to film buffs). They don’t have a lot of artists on the world stage and they’re damned if they’re going to let go of this one.
European cultural/political circles are smaller than ours, and Applebaum is married to a government offical, so it’s not unreasonable to assume she has met Polanski. From all accounts, Polanski can be extremely charming; that is, when he’s not trying to force anal sex on someone. Must be rather difficult to grasp that the cultivated man who sat next to you at Madame so-and-so’s dinner party in Paris and entertained you with brilliant talk also rapes children.
Difficult to grasp, but it should not be impossible for a student of the Soviet era. I’m sure at least a few of Stalin’s henchmen were well-spoken and and the SS had plenty of art and opera-loving aesthetes.
One of the hardest things to do is recognize evil in our own time. Hollywood pats itself on the back for making movies about Nazis 60 years after the fact, but Spielberg thinks Castro is just peachy. Applebaum knows evil exists when she digs it up out of the Soviet archives, but can’t recognize it in the person of a renowned Polish film director. So she’s twisted herself into ridiculous knots defending the indefensible. The argument that the girl was “asking for it” will certainly pop into my mind the next time Applebaum writes about oppressed Afghan women.
Yeah, for Hollywood celebrity types child rape is only a problem when you’re a neo conservative extolling “family values” while trolling for page sex in congress. Busted! If you’re a democrat in congress you get re-elected for actually having page sex. Apparently it is understood that Hollywood neo liberals are into child sodomy and Quaaludes and not traditional family values, and only red state rubes would think a Polish director hiding out in France to avoid serving time for raping a thirteen year old could possibly be an example of Euro trash and Beverly Hill’s codependency.
11. Donna V,
You’re so on the money. It’s also the ‘charm’ that seduces parents into trusting their children alone with said charmers who can put on such a convincing mask that to question such a person is almost inconceivable because we want to believe the boogyman looks like a monster and not a Ted Bundy or a pretty blonde teacher.
Sometimes the nicer the person seems to be, the more suspicious I am of that person.
Yep, even conservatives support the rule of law sometimes. Wonders.
Peace.
DS
Applebaum’s decision to wade into this fever swamp was indeed disturbing. Radosh invoking Ivan Demianiuk particularly struck me, since I was a high school senior in 1977 in a Cleveland suburb, back when this was a spectacular scandal.
Because an underlying ethos lurking beneath those seeking to defend Polanski as a victim does indeed mimic many who for years insisted that Demianiuk was ‘persecuted’, a phenomomon I witnessed front and center for many years.
Instead of the State or Justice Dept ‘playing loose’ with facts or subjective investigation – a conspiracy to placate a vital ally intent on ‘educating a younger generation’ about the criminals who propagated the Holocoust by sacrificing an innocent man, Polanski represents an iconic celeb who both vindicates and validates the kind of license the stupendously successful in the entertainment world expect their wealth and success entitles them to.
It’s not that they are flaunting convention since they have long since upgraded convention, at least from their perspective. It is that because they are worth millions earned either making Film, or TV or Music, normal convention doesnt’ apply. They expect to buy themselves out of trouble should they find it, and, when that isn’t possible, any act of contrition once caught warrants extreme leniency.
My recollections as a teenager back when this scandal broke was that the victims mother was painted as a villianous ‘stage mother’ – a theme that resurfaced in the recent documentary Polanski’s supporters now point to as a smoking gun.
Basicly there are two views in collision here – and they revolve around ‘age of consent’ and ‘memory’. What I remember about this as a teen was the controversy over a rape ever having happened – that was the fundemental point at the time. The mother was viewed as a villian not just because she pimped her daughter for photo’s – even to the point of lying about the daughters age – but explicitly regarding sexual favors.
Some Polanski defenders at the time openly defended his behavior as ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ – since they – in the pre AID’s universe that the late seventies represented – likewise enjoyed a lifestyle where a lot of technical statutory rape was going on ‘after the show’ – be it a rock tour or a location shoot or a party at the Playboy mansion.
By 1977 we as a culutre were just beginning to embrace the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll lifestyle that filtered down from the 60′s & ’70′s – regular folks – not just the rich and famous. I don’t suggest everyone did – just that within another decade it became so commonplace so as to no longer become shocking.
Today Polanski’s defenders are contorting facts and outright lies to portray him as yet again a victim. For instance, the judge was certainly a flake and obsessed with self promotion – but the ‘certainty’ of judical misconduct or a plea deal is anything but certain.
What is certainly quite different now after all these years is that there is a very different conventional view of the lifestyle decisions once celebrated in the interviening years – again an argument Polanski supporters try and use to his advantage.
In this way Polanski represents a more understandable symbol in explaining why his defenders are so irrational. The price for high divorce, and sexual promiscuity, and recreational drug use wasn’t so expensive nor widespred in 1977. But in the subsequent years, years when Polanski made the sacrifice of staying at arms length of any possibility of arrest by ‘shoping’ for proper extradition jurisdiction, the price that such choices brought have been widely recognized.
But for those who survived them in style? To whom the best lawyers and doctors are always available to clean up the subsequent mess? For them it is enough that the orginal victim is a grown woman who ‘was compensated’ in a civil suit. Everything else is now, to quote Deb Winger, ‘Philistine’.
In a perverse way I hear echos of the defense of Demianiuk preached many years ago in Cleveland. I am unsure to this day whether the man was a misfortunate John the auto worker – or if he truly was the monster. But I do know that some of the Polish and Hungarian’s I listened to were pretty wraped up in some rather ugly anti-semitism when defending him – some of them my own age, making them grandchildren of the era that so resented Israel’s obsession with bringing him to justice.
I don’t suffer such ambivelance when it comes to Roman Polanski. He’s not a victim of anything but the choices he made when becoming a criminal. The payoff (and the admission of guilt) in a civil suit didn’t close the book.
Just ask Bill Clinton.
And now we have Anne. Is she a victim of becoming an appoligist for a criminal? Right on again Ron. Integrity is a terrible thing to waste. The price can cost you a lifetime in the credibility department.
Anne Applebaum says the mother approved of some of the behavior? You be the judge. This is the relevant part of the victim’s grand jury testimony, containing her entire testimony about the phone call to her mother:
Q: What happened out there after he [Polanski[ indicated he wished to take pictures of you in the jacuzzi?
A: We went inside and called my mother.
Q: When you say “we called,” did you call or did Mr. Polanski call?
A: He told me to and then I talked and then he talked and then I talked again.
Q: What did you tell your mother?
A: She goes “Are you all right?
I went, “Uh-huh.”
And she says, “Do you want me to come pick you up?”
And I went, “No.”
And he said that we’d be home kind of late because it had already gotten dark out.
Q: When you said “he said” did he tell you or did you hear him tell your mother on the phone?
A: He told my mother.
Q: Did he tell your mother any other thngs?
A: Not that I was listening to.
@ David S. # 14 “Yep, even conservatives support the rule of law sometimes. Wonders.
Peace.”
Never any peace with persons such as you, who when they are not lying are deluded.
15. Phoenix48,
-And, isn’t it odd that the supposed political proponents for the poor and downtrodden are usually the victims of sexual abuse by said proponents?
Good rant btw. Thank you.
The Washington Post should have refused to print her column given her conflict of interest on the subject matter; the editor should have told to her to write another column on a different subject altogether.
However, the damage has been done by Applebaum herself of a self-inflicted wound; she comes across just as nutty as Polanski.
As I’ve said elsewhere, Hollywood’s apparent lockstep support for Polanski is apparently at least in part out of fear. So the story goes, the word is out in Hollywood: if you want to continue with your career, support him or at least shut up. If you come out against him, and he is let off and continues to work in Hollywood, he’s influential enough to make sure you don’t ever work in this town again.
Nice, what power child molesters wield, isn’t it?
P.S. To date, the only American entertainment personality I am aware of who thinks Polanski should go to jail is Jewel. I guess she doesn’t have that much of an acting career anyway.
Re DavidN #18: Chris Rock (of all people) has also come out against Polanski. Not sure how he compares to Jewel but that makes 2 “celebrities” with a conscious.
http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-chris-rock-on-roman-polanski-rape/
[19.] ATP,
When a blatantly misogynistic comedian comes out against Polskanky, I find myself hardly believing it in any way, shape or form.
In other words…
Rats swim.
David Thomson, you rock!
David S, the wastelands you inhabit appear to be almost without limits.
I thought the deal with Anne Applebaum re: Polanski was that her husband was lobbying on behalf of Polanski.
Re Delia #20: Exactly. I was pretty shocked myself about Chris Rock’s views on Polanski. of course during that same conversation on Leno he proceeded to say that he was now NOT scared of white people since Obama got elected.
Small victories.
Here’s the part I don’t understand; when confronted with the facts of the case and the outrage that her column has fomented, Ms. Applebaum continues to dig the hole she finds herself in ever deeper.
Surely she can’t believe that her words are defensible yes?
The smartest thing she could do and I don’t believe it’s too late, would be to admit that she made a mistake and that now, having examined the facts, realizes she was WRONG. This thing, at least as how it applies to Ms. Applebaum, would likely blow over. Failing that, one would have to consider that her career as a journalist is in grave doubt.
ATP,
I fear white people too.
Every time I look in the mirror, I’m like, “OMG! I’m white? NOOOOOOOOOO!”
Thanks for makin’ me scared of myself, OH-BUMMAh.
*sniff*
What Anne Applebaum missed was the fact Roman Polanski was the husband of Sharon Tate who was horribly murdered. Something which certainly altered his ability to distinguish right from wrong.
And it’s true that when you’re a celebrity, the law should take into account how hard it is to live a normal life.
What’s more, there’s the 14th amendment argument. President Obama, the country’s chief law enforcement officer, himself, often overlooks mistakes that also are criminal in the eyes of the law.
For example, Obama was the lawyer for Acorn when they were in their formative years refining their ability to steal elections and such.
Obama hired to be the head of the IRS someone who committed a federal crime by not paying taxes. But it was overlooked and Tim Geithner was never prosecuted.
Eric Holder, the attorney general, convinced President Clinton to pardon Marc Rich who was on the FBI’s ten most wanted list.
Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, unrepentant domestic terrorist, and Tony Rezko, all were close friends while up to their eyeballs in shady real estate deals and such.
Ted Kennedy was never prosecuted for reckless driving and manslaughter in the Mary Jo Kopechne case.
Celebrities and people with a lot of money are treated as being above the law. And Roman Polanski surely is a celebrity. So why should he be made to pay for his crimes when others guilty of equally heinous crimes are let go and never prosecuted?
Prosecuting Polanski would also fly in the face of the equal protection clause under the 14th amendment to the constitution.
And, as David Letterman joked on his show, the girl Polanski raped and sodomized “was dressing provocatively in a Catholic school girl’s outfit. Which could even make Hillary Clinton look sexy.”
Delia: thank you.
Phoenix: you’re right about the way the mother was portrayed. I also recall that the girl was portrayed by the MSM as a scheming little Lolita-type. When you read her testimony (calling oral sex “cuddling” for instance, because she couldn’t pronounce the Latin term), you realize how much this kid was wronged. No wonder she considers the MSM treatment of her to be as bad as the actual rape.
Kristie Alley also has come out against Polanski. Hardly an A-lister, but my hat is off to her anyway. We know how tolerant Hollywood is of those who do not conform to their mores.
David S.: still lying and defending a child rapist, I see. Your “moral compass” is located between your legs.
I don’t think the idiots who are spinning and defending and explaining away Polanski’s horrendous crime deserve additional attention by way of writeres writing pieces such as this. The very act of itemizing why Polanski should be punished defies the power of the obvious. He commited statutory rape. He plied a child with alcohol and drugs and raped her. There is nothing more to say, and by saying more, we diminish the power of the plain truth.
While it is nice to understand why a pervert perverts, it does not excuse the action.
There is NO justification for an adult man to have anal, oral and vaginal sex with a 13 year old girl.
That he used drugs to subdue her is also wrong. It is wrong both morally and legally. What more can be said?
It is like those who tried to justify Letterman’s poor jokes about ARod and Spitzer having sex with Palin’s 14 year old daughter. Wrong. Wrong. Shameful.
24. Carol:
“There is nothing more to say, and by saying more, we diminish the power of the plain truth.”
I bet to differ [respectfully].
By saying nothing while we let the LefTarded Media and Twisted beyond Sodom and Gomorrah Glitterati make of it what ‘THEY’ will, then only the ‘wrong’ has a voice and honey chile, that just AIN’t RIGHT.
26 Delia – You’re right.
*I* would just like to say for ALL rape victims including myself:
Women should NOT be ashamed that they were raped!
PERIOD.
Forgiveness?
F*CK forgiveness! This is about JUSTICE.
This young girl who is now a woman should not be SHAMED for her wanting to MOVE ON but SHE is NOT the justice system and if we tell every PEDO FREAK on earth that if they are good looking/famous/rich that they can screw the system then what is going to happen to our world of children we are supposed to protect?????????
WHAT do we tell our daughters? What do we tell our SONS? What do we say about justice and truth?
WHATTTTTTTTTTT?
The Polanski crime is awful, but this issue being in the headlines is a good thing because it helps to expose the gap between the values of the American public and the so-called Intellectuals and Elites. Public figures with once valuable reputations are now on record defending Polanski and excusing his crime and subsequent behavior.
The same thing happened with Ted Kennedy – remember that sick column asking if Mary Jo would have thought it was worth it, given all of the “Liberal Lion”‘s achievements? For them, any behavior, no matter how terrible, can be excused under the right circumstances. You can never trust anyone like that as they’re obviously just making up their own “values” as they go along, to their own advantage and in response to their own desires.
Still, always keep in mind that liberals and progressives first avenue of attack is to guilt and shame you into giving up your rights or resources. But because they have no moral code themselves, and always believe the “noble lie” that they are working for the greater good, they are immune to that tack themselves.
“Colorize a black and white film.” Just imagine if he was caught pirating some of Hollywood’s “precious” films.
Anne. I’ve been able to set up a photo shoot for your daughter with Mr. Polansky. Interested? May I sit in?
Letterman, Woody Allen, Whoopy Goldberg, Michael Jackson, Leno, Lefty Hollywood apologists and East Coast lifestyle doyens in support of Oppressed Pedophiles Of The World; there is a special place for you in the universe. Hopefully you’ll get there sooner rather then later. And you won’t like it.
He should be shot, of course. Along with the girl’s mother.
But then ALL his class of “celebrities” should be shot, less for what they do than for who they are.
The true foundation for the Polanski Defense is self-dealing. These pukes on this list are either guilty of similar deeds or a victim of them. In either case, the notion that it is all no big deal and a long, long time ago is one they play in their own minds to justify their continued CO2 footprint, like Clinton.
Her position is NOT irrational. She is a “journalist,” a prostitute who does what those who pay her, demand. Her husband is working to free the kiddy-diddler and she does what she’s told. It’s just like the pimps telling journalists to scream for Obama. What’s irrational?
But then ALL his class of “celebrities” should be shot, less for what they do than for who they are.
Are you serious? Congrats, if you are, you’ve managed to sound as stupid and immoral as Applebaum. Nice totalitarian thinking! The Soviets and Nazis also believed that it doesn’t matter what people do, but what they are.
Hollywood was a pretty depraved back in the 1930s, although they made more of an effort to hide it then. Using your reasoning, it would have been OK to shoot Ronald Reagan and John Wayne because Errol Flynn was a pig.
#32: David S.: still lying and defending a child rapist, I see. Your “moral compass” is located between your legs. Well said said.
And forever pointing South, I would imagine.
Sorry, David S., but you deserve all the derision flung at you on this site.
No Peace for you.
Anne Applebaum has exhibited the moral thoughtfulness and seriousness to write of the evil of Communism, and to make clear its many millions of victims, acts that place her squarely outside the political herd of the Left. I don’t know how to integrate that with the moral idiocy of her defenses of Polanski – and it’s apparent that so far, no one else does either.
What happened to her?
Neo-neocon,
Let’s say, counter-factually, that the mother had approved? So what? How can Applebaum use that to exculpate Polanski’s rape of a achild?
So not only are Applebaum’s facts wrong, her moral argument is nonsense.
RE #41/Mary Jo: “Letterman, Woody Allen, Whoopy Goldberg, Michael Jackson [...]”
1) “Dumbing down deviancy”, this is how late Patrick Moynahan characterized the larger trend the Polanski apologists belong to –
2) “This lecherous dwarf” – this is how Woddy Allen was accurately described a few years ago in a Los Angeles court by Bert Fields during the proceedings of a case opposing mister Allen to his business manager -
So we don’t really miss testimonials & character witnesses in this case -
To rework what I said earlier. Anne is attempting to preserve a legal system. This is different than a justice system. The difference between the two is profound.
It would be nice if this episode awakened people and prompted them to reexamne and reject the celebrity culture fetish that corrupts this country. I suppose that would be asking too much.
Sorry, but this Anne has no real idea what suffering is if she thinks that the child rapist Polanski has somehow already paid for his crime. Well I happen to think that the crime against a child such as the anal rape of a 13 year old girl by a 40+ year old monster has yet to be paid. I want Polanski to go to jail. I want him to have a cellmate who stands around 6’5″ and weighs in at around 300 pounds. I want Polanski’s new roommate to feel very very attracted to him. Then I would like to have nature take it’s course. Let’s see if Polanski enjoys getting anal rape as much as he enjoys giving it.
Polanski stands above the law ….
Petty legalities do not apply to the A-List Elite.
… Hope that clears it up for you all.
I can’t say I’m that surprised of Applebaum’s stance, seeing as it echoes the her usually sensible center right husband,
Radek Sikorski, the polish foreign minister.
Than again she was willing to take Obama’s
then nonsensical foreign policy pronouncement
on faith, and took a certain obstinate pride
in denigrating the good governor, who’s policy positions she’d more likely agree with
Even the Wall Street Journal, with a primary focus on economics, argues that Polanski should return and pay the price for his crime.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574448033489885784.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle
That Ms. Applebaum doesn’t get it, does not speak well of her.
BTW- per Smoking Gun transcript, the 13 y/o says “cuddiliness” I suggest this was an error in transcript, as she probably said “cunnilingus”, but the transcriber heard cuddiliness.
@51. gus3:
Even the Wall Street Journal, with a primary focus on economics, argues that Polanski should return and pay the price for his crime.
I read the WSJ every day. The opinion page is about as far right as you will find in the MSM. The primary focus of editorials in the Journal is to bolster GOP talking points.
An editorial on the Polanski case that does not touch on any of the legal issues is simply bad journalism. Anne Applebaum at least took the time to address the facts in the case. One can defend the principles of justice without approving of the actions of criminals – in fact, this is the very basis of our legal system.
When such distinctions fail to be made, the Republic and the People inevitably suffer.
Peace.
DS
David S.: what about the NY Times and WaPo? Both papers ran editorals stating Polanski should be extradited. What about Nina Burleigh,Katha Pollit, and Susan Estrich, who have condemned Polanski in the strongest terms? Tell me that they are all pushing GOP talking points.
There are some things even most libs can’t stomach, but alas, some have completely lost any sense of right and wrong.
I repeat: you are a morally corrupt liar who defends a child rapist.
P.S. Change your sign off to “Piece.” It would more accurately describe you.
As in POS. Or “piece of 13 year old *** that I’d really like to get my hands on.”
God knows why women defend Polanski, but I am starting to believe that every male who does so either has skeltons in the closet or fantasizes about doing what Polanski did.
I don’t think it’s relevant to a rape conviction, but, if in fact, the facts indicate rape at front and back, what in hell does the Whoopie Hooray Goldberg comment, “It wasn’t rape rape,” mean? What’s left? I guess her mouth, but only after her rear end.
Isn’t the Wall Street Journal owned by News Corp? I thought we agreed that News Corp is not Main Stream Media.
Applebaum argues that it is punishment not to live in the United States; the same United States that the left curses “God Damn America” (Jeremiah Wright) and that the current administrations’ czars and cabinet seeks to destroy.
Go figure.
You seem to forget (or do not know) that in most of the European countries there is a statue of limitations on almost all crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations
For example in Poland even penalizing of murded is limited to only 30 years. After that time if murderer managed to avoid justice that long, he/she cannot be punished.
I am not saying whether this is right or not. I just want to point out that inevitability of punishemnt regardless of time lapse is not that obvious at all from the moral point of view, if they introduced such law in Europe.
I don’t know what is the statue of limitation for rape for example in Poland.
But if you are curious have a look at their penal code:
http://tinyurl.com/yfsczgu
Google translation of the Polish penal code:
Limitation
Art 101 § 1 Prosecution shall lapse if the time of its commission passed years:
1) 30 – when the act constitutes a crime of murder,
2) 20 – when the act constitutes another crime,
2) 15 – when the act is a transgression punishable by deprivation of liberty exceeding 5 years,
3) 10 – when the act is a transgression punishable by deprivation of liberty than 3 years
4) 5 – when it comes to other crimes.
5) (repealed).
§ 2 Prosecution, prosecution of private prosecution shall terminate at the end of one year from the time when the victim knew the person of the offender, but not later than the end of 3 years from the time of its commission.
§ 3 In the cases provided for in § 1 or 2, where no crime depends on the occurrence of a particular effect in the Act, the limitation period starts from the time when the effect occurred.
§ 4 Limitation of criminal offenses referred to in Article. 199 § 2 and 3, Art. 200, Art. 202 § 2 and 4 and Articles. 204 § 3, as well as the crimes defined in Article. 197, Art. 201, Art. 202 § 3, Art. Article 203. 204 § 4, where the victim is a minor – not before the expiry of 5 years from completion of the victim 18 years.
Article 102 If within the period provided for in Article. 101 proceedings were initiated against the person punishable offense committed by her referred to in § 1 item 1 – 3 shall cease at the end of 10 years, and in other cases – at the end of 5 years from the end of this period.
Article 103 § 1 Could not execute the penalty, if the conviction becomes final elapsed years:
1) 30 – in the event of a conviction to imprisonment exceeding 5 years or more severe penalty,
2) 15 – in the event of a conviction to imprisonment not exceeding 5 years,
3) 10 – in the event of a conviction for another penalty.
§ 2 Provision of § 1 paragraph 3 shall apply mutatis mutandis to the punitive measures listed in Article. 39 points 1-4 and 6 and 7, provision of § 1 paragraph 2 shall apply mutatis mutandis to a corrective measure mentioned in Art. 39 points 5
Article 104 § 1 The period of limitation does not run, if the statutory provision does not permit the initiation or continuation of criminal proceedings, but not for a lack of applications or private prosecution.
§ 2 Limitation in relation to the crimes defined in Article. 144, Art. 145 § 2 or 3, Art. 338 § 1 or 2, and Article. 339 runs from the time of making satisfy the obligation or the time at which the offender has ceased to weigh.
Article 105 § 1 Provisions of Article. 101-103 does not apply to crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes.
§ 2 Provisions of Article. 101-103 also do not apply to intentional crimes: murder, grievous bodily injury, serious bodily injury or deprivation of liberty combined with a special torment, committed by a public official in connection with the performance of official duties.
http://tinyurl.com/yfsczgu
I don’t know what is the statue of limitation for rape for example in Poland.
But if you are curious have a look at their penal code: