JustASC

Some common sense on the Roman Polanski thing, courtesy of a reader’s comment to an item at the New Republic:

The real issue isn’t how rapey Polanski was. That was all dealt with in 1977, when the prosecutors agreed to a conviction on a lesser charge. Nor is the issue, on the other side, what the victim wants, which is to see him let go. (“He’s suffered enough,” she told an interviewer.) No, the real issue today is a straightforward one: Is Polanski above the law because he has made good movies? The answer is obviously no, and so he should pay his debt to society as anyone else would have to. No special favors for creative genius, money, connections, or anything else. That’s a good principle to follow.