My Friend Roman

I've been thinking about my feelings about Polanski and I think I have realized why I feel as I do.

First, I am almost always happy when a criminal escapes the clutches of the law.

Second, I think that this guy has lived 31 years without, as far as we know, reoffending.

Third, during those 31 years he has lived a productive and creative life.

Then I have some thoughts on why some people seem to hot to punish him, people who wouldn't be so hot for punishment in other cases. Most progressives thought that the various members of the Weather Underground who were arrested decades after their crimes should not have gotten the kinds of jail time most of them got. Yet these same progressives seem to be more then willing to hang out to dry any other progressive who is busted for a sexual transgression (see Spitzer, Gov.).

Also I really do not see the conservatives or the MSM running around calling for the arrest and trial of the people like Bush and Chaney and their minions who authorized and micro-directed the operation of our own rape/torture rooms. Although, that is more of a shout out about hypocrisy, rather than about Polanski. But it is a simple point that a man who apparently committed one rape is hunted with relish, while a several men who committed multiple rapes are simply given a pass. Real progressives, for the most part get a pass on this one.

At any rate that's where I am now, but I may have more thoughts later about the crime itself. It is difficult to write about it with any kind of a balance, without coming off as sounding like a rape apologist.