Copious Notes

The arrest of ­Roman ­Polanski has revived ­memories of a really gross crime and the flogging of a favorite mid-American ­target: Hollywood liberals.

You know who they are. They’re the ones who are dragging America into the toilet with their filthy entertainment and socialist politics.

Just tuning in to a few ­minutes of talk radio this week brought an offhand comment about all the ­“Hollywood libs sticking up for Roman Polanski.”

Roman Polanski. Photo by Roberto Pfeil | AP.

The comment stems from petitions signed by some noteworthy filmmakers, including Martin ­Scorsese, demanding that the ­government of Switzerland release Polanski.

Polanski was arrested there last month and is fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski was 43 at the time. He pleaded guilty but fled before sentencing in and has lived in France since then.

By any measure, what Polanski did was reprehensible. His victim, whom he plied with drugs and alcohol, was a girl — a seventh- or eighth-grader at best. Why anyone sticks up for him is hard for most of us to grasp.

But using the case and petitions to beat up ­Hollywood as a bunch of degenerates doesn’t square with reality, and neither does the idea that Hollywood is dragging the country into the gutter.

The thing is, facing ­reality makes the country face some uncomfortable truths about itself.

Read the rest of this entry »