Hollywood, Mr. Weinstein, has the moral compass of an ashtray, and that vaunted compassion is insular and singularly inconsistent.
Hollywood's obsession with fame and disdain for those who don't achieve it turns normal human values inside out and upside down, resulting in the likes of Whoopie Goldberg proclaiming that rape of a child of 13 who was first drugged and plied with champagne isn't 'rape-rape' it's something else. That's a moral compass that could be improved by replacing it with something from a stale box of cracker-jacks.
As a Daniel come to judgment calling him or her self Snark Shark explains here) (in words that the owners of such useless moral compasses might be able to understand):
The victim said no-no. She wanted him to stop-stop. Rapist Polanski didn't listen-listen. Therefore, it was rape-rape.
A few other links:
Did the alleged judicial misconduct really occur? Looks like no.
I think of all the defenses of Polanski I have read, the two that shock me the most are Joan Shore's, both for the dishonesty (she claims the victim was just a few weeks shy of the age of consent when, in fact, she was years from it, and she did NOT consent, among other things) and the blame the victim smears coming from a woman claiming to be the Co-founder of a group called Women Overseas for Equality (Belgium), and Ann Applebaum's.
All you need to know about Applebaum's account is this. Among many other lies she tells there is this one:
There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age
This makes no sense, because he had told the mother and victim he was photographing the girl for a Vogue magazine photo-shoot and to give verisimilitude to his baited trap, there were consent forms that he had the mother sign and which gave the child's correct age as 13, and which forms were very much in evidence. Furthermore, he actually testified under oath at the time that he knew she was only 13 years old.
And what makes Applebaum's dishonesty all the more egregious is this exchange she later has with Patterico, who has pointed out her many inaccuracies, to put it kindly:
Yes, there is “evidence” that Polanski did not know the girls age – or that he was told but did not believe it: He has told people since that, anyway. Pictures of her from the time show a girl who could be anywhere from 12-25. “There is evidence” is a broad expression and I see no need to correct that either, as again it would simply be confusing.
Her 'evidence' that the child-rapist did not know the child was 13 is the child-rapist's own altered, much after the fact story told ages after the event, to 'people.' Not to judges or courts or under oath- and in direct contradiction of what he testified to under oath at the time- and her excuse for telling readers this was 'evidence' without letting them know how shaky that evidence is? It is that her readers are too stupid and easily confused to learn the facts.
Of course, Patrick Goldstein's LA Times editorial comparing the child- rapist Polanski with Jean Val Jean, who stole bread because he was hungry and then selflessly and purely raised Cossette's child was pretty much from the place my moral compass calls bizzaro-land.
It has been pretty heartening to read the comments to those posts- the hoi polloi are having none of it, and the commoners of both left and right have been pretty firmly united in explaining to the Grand Poo-Bahs that rape is rape, and fleeing sentencing makes you a fugitve, and Polanski deserves no special treatment. Pin It
