One thing that comes to mind in reading Glenn Greenwald’s latest takedown of the Washington Post is that the conservatives at the Post don’t live up to their own creed. In essence, conservatives believe that people need to have respect for their institutions. Therefore, it’s dangerous if people do things to undermine that faith, like failing to wear ties in the White House or having sexual relations in the Oval Office. Sometimes, as with Iran-Contra or the authorization of torture and illegal warrantless surveillance, it’s best for the media to just let it go, lest people begin to believe that their government is unworthy.
But, when people see that there is one form of justice for the rich and powerful and another form of justice for ordinary citizens, that also undermines their faith in their institutions. That’s why most people agree with Fred Hiatt that Roman Polanski should face justice for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year old girl, even if the crime occurred 32-years ago. Why should he get a pass just because he’s rich and talented and has powerful friends?
But Post columnists Richard Cohen and Anne Applebaum see things differently. They will defend the rich and powerful when they commit crimes. They want to see these people walk, whether they be Polish film directors or government officials who have committed perjury and obstruction of justice. As for Hiatt, he makes a distinction between liberal Hollywood types, who he thinks should go to jail, and government officials, who he thinks should be above the law.
Greenwald nails it with this:
How strange to watch Post editors stand tall in opposition to the easy targets of vapid celebrities and “the French” while steadfastly ignoring the equally twisted (at least) Polanski defenses coming right from their own Op-Ed backyard. But the last thing that ought to be surprising is to find defenses of morally depraved acts on the Op-Ed page of the Post; that is, after all, its essence.
Sadly, that’s true.
that’s been true since at least 2001.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but as the post began rattling the saber to invade Iraq, I emailed fred hiatt and asked if he would want his kids to sign up to fight.
His response (back when he answered emails) was “no.”
greenwald nails it: “morally depraved”.
In his case, it’s selective moral depravity.
whose case,m greenwald or hiatt’s?
never mind, re-read the post, got the point.
me dumb, and a little hungover.
While there are some possible issues, the main point is that Polansky had sex with a 13 year old, AND he claimed he did not know. Now, this is simply beyond all comprehension. While some 13-year-olds are physically developed, it is generally obvious that they are young. And so he confused a 13 year old with a … 16 year old? Both are illegal. She had to be 18 to be legal, and you are not gonna convince me that ANY 13 year old looks like an 18 year old.
the age of consent is 16 in many states, although I have no idea what it is and was in California.
As for Polanski, what do expect him to say? You have to offer some excuse. He gave an interview in 1979 (can’t find the link right now) where he said (paraphrasing): “Judges like to fuck young girls, juries like to fuck young girls, everyone likes to fuck young girls.”
So, at least he knew she was young.
Couple the fact that she was young with the fact that she repeatedly said NO!….and in her testimony, referred to him performing “cuddliness”. That’s a child. The defense of him reinforces every stereotype of Hollywood liberal elitists. I sure hope several thousand of them sign a petition disavowing Polansky or the GOP and real Americans are going to be hanging them around our necks at every opportunity. Shit like that sticks with people, too.
Here’s the link.
Appealing to Hillary Clinton and Barack – that’s right, appeal to two parents of girls claiming it’s ok because he’s made some movies. moran.
My understanding of the controversy indicates it is rooted in his trial. It seems Polanski was arguing it was consensual, albeit with a minor, and therefore he should be only convicted of statutory rape. In plea bargaining he agreed to plead guilty to all(?) charges in return for a relatively short prison sentence (measured in months), but after the judge looked again at the ‘optics’ of granting such a short sentence on someone pleading guilty to raping a thirteen year old he retracted his offer. Polanski, learning that the judge was going to throw the book at him (I’ve heard a sentence of fifty plus years) took off. That’s the reason why Europe has accommodated him – they are much laxer on underage sex if it’s consensual – and the fact he’s never been convicted of the crime in a court of law. Personally I can’t believe a forty year old man can have consensual sex with a thirteen year old; it’s for that precise reason we have the charge of statutory rape (though I opposed it being applied to, say, a seventeen year old boy having sex with his fifteen year old girl friend). I, for one, am pleased to seem Polanski brought to justice. Better late than never.
it can’t be consensual because 13 year olds can’t legally consent to sex.
also, in the testimony it’s clear she wasn’t consenting to any of this.
Greenwald has also sounded the alarm that the same depraved “reporting” that coaxed us into the Iraq war is beginning to rear its ugly head regarding Iran. Greenwald was brilliant in the following MSNBC clip and exposed Ariana Huffington and Capehart as shills for the Israeli Right.
VIDEO CLIP
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/youtube-glenn-greenwald-arianna-huffington-discuss/
HIS ARTCLE ON THE SUBJECT
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/26/iran/index.html#share
I suppose there’s some amount of snarking involved in your commentary here. I don’t intend to try and sort through it all.
If you’re (really) arguing that those such as the editors at the Post and many others who either
defend(ed) Bush, Cheney and others —who by all rights in a just system would be flagrant candidates for charges of war-crimes or, indeed, by this time, would have been impeached, removed, arrested and charged with war crimes, tried, and convicted and, in a merciful system, be serving life-sentences, or, in a system which dispensed to them the sort of ‘justice’ they demand others be made to suffer, hanged by the neck until dead,— or , who were and are content to simply “turn the page” (as Obama clearly is) and allow the despicable lot of them to go unpunished, are shamless hypocrites, then I basically agree with you.
I say to all who are ready to demand R. Polanski’s extradition to the U.S. and his imprisonment, “I’ll see you first at the sentencings for war crimes of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, et al”—without exeception of party or high position; thus, Reid and Pelosi (at least) ought also be tried for the same. If you balk at that, then my response to your “outrage” at those who believe, as I do, that nothing we should call “justice” would be served by Polanski’s going to prison at this point, “Sorry, hypocrite, but take the beam out of thine own eye, then come and talk to me, huh?”
Not only are Bush’s Cheney’s (and their thug henchmen’s) victims suffering maiming and death–cruelly, needlessly and illegally, those (thousands upon thousands of) victims are continuing as you read this to be joined by others and there is still no end in sight.
While many wring their hands over a case that now has seen its 30th anniversary come and go—and one in which, if the convicted remained free and never served a day in prison would, nevertheless not pose the slightest risk of harm to any person—an outrage of the most serious kinds of crimes goes unattended.
Americans’ are apparently obsessed with vengeance while they care nothing at all about justice or fairness in the respect of law applied with reason and proportion. But that figures, really: it’s a morally corrupt society, thus it is only fitting that it government and the legal system as well as the prevailing public morals on the part of the average citizenry faithfully reflect that moral corruption.
Polanski should go free–not because of his social position or his place as an “artist” but because in this case, no matter the circumstances of who was in his place, justice would not be served by putting him in prison after so long a time. Nothing worthy would be served. I’d say the same if it were a truck-driver rather than a movie director involved.
By your logic, if you skip bail and evade the law for a period of time, eventually your culpability is erased by the mere passage of time.
Also, by your logic, none of our laws should be enforced if any of our laws are unenforced.
You write (snarkingly?):
Well, I suppose if one felt somehow obliged to slavishly follow what you call the “logic” involved here in not just this case but, instead, in each and every case, regardless of the particulars, you might have a valid point. But doing that—that is, slavishly following a single narrow rationale without regard to the particular circumstances involved— is the standard American damn-fool idiot’s way, not mine.
In my approach, justice comes through a careful consideration, informed by reason and fairness, of all the facts of the case—case by case and not from any rote and blind application of rules or ideological dogma. In other words, fair and reasoned judgement is applied, without regard for fashionable opinion or other extraneous factors which have no proper place in reaching a just decision.
So, no, I’d never argue or urge that this case’s details were the product of any cut-and-dried set of logical criteria, thereafter to be applied to virtually any subsequent case. That’s your (nightmarish) distortion of what I propose.
The purpose of judges and juries is to take case-law and statutes and, using human reason– that is, their best judgement– to apply their judgement to the existing law and make a determination which, in light of all the known facts, best produces what they deem to be “just”, “fair” and “right”–whether it pleases the prosecutor or defense attorney or not [though, under our law, it was once a point of pride that, whenever a criminal case juror found ground for a doubt (by the standards of guilt applicable to the case under examination-that is, guilt established by the “prepondrance of the evidence,” guilt established “by proof beyond a reasonable doubt” , & etc.) they were obliged, when in doubt, to render a verdict in the defendant’s favor, lest they convict an innocent man or woman. That is now practically an relic of a long gone time. Judges and juries today seem most concerned to ensure that no one who only might be innocent ever escape punishment, especially if the punishment is death.]
In this case, in my view, a just determination would preclude any prison time or even a suspended sentence of a term of imprisonment. Other cases, though similar, would have to be judged on their own merits.
Really, American “justice” has, like so much else about the society, become a moral disgrace. And, the more the case involves a capital felony, the more frequent are the disgraceful outcomes, miscarriages of justice.
you’re copping kind of a pompous attitude, but I’ll let that go.
The reason you think he should get off scot free is mainly because:
a) far worse crimes are currently going unpunished, and
b) the crime took place 32 years ago.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with applying a little Categorical Imperative to that reasoning to see what it yields. That doesn’t make me a slave of logic. It merely points out the implications of your reasoning if it were to be expressed as general principle.
“The reason you think he should get off scot free is mainly because:
a) far worse crimes are currently going unpunished, and
b) the crime took place 32 years ago.”
really, the above is what I call a gross over-simplification. It resembles, though, just the way I imagine so many people “reason” about this case.
Do you seriously think that this man has “got off scot free”? Did it occur to you that rather than that, he has
a) made a substantial damages settlement with the woman involved?;
b) despite having “escaped justice” (as you see it), he has lived ever since a haunted life and one in which he has gained an appreciation for the terrible things he did in this case and feels deep remorse?
and one in which he has never since been able to feel truly “at ease”, since he knows that should he ever go anywhere (as just happened in Switzerland) where he is subject to arrest and extradition to the U.S., the now 30+ year-old case would once more take over his life’s concerns?
Your summary over-simplification leaves out a number of important factors which I weighed in coming to my view:
What do you think is the real probability that, whatever else happens, he’d ever pose a reasonably serious danger of recidivism? I take into account here the facts that, for example
he’s (at least to the extent possible when one is living under a permanent threat of one’s past) also re-made a life for himself in the time since; and is a productive and respected member of society;
though, again, these aren’t mentioned anywhere in your summary version of the way I reached my view. So, what do you make the liklihood of his recidivism? As I see it, it’s something right at “zero” reasonable liklihood. That is very important; but you don’t mention it as a factor. Why not?
And then, since the victim has accepted a settlement, what’s driving your compulsion for his being returned to face a fresh sentencing hearing? Concern for the victim? Some respect for a formalistic application of law, as though ‘the law’ has been offended and must have ‘its due’?
If you’re dazzled by a Kantian Categorical Imperative and you must, I welcome you to apply one. It presupposes, however, that the applications all be to the same circumstances, identical in every material respect, save, for example, one’s station in life. And, by that standard, as I’ve already stated, anyone else having done the same things, in the same circumstances, no matter what his rank, title, profession or social standing, would, in my opinion, with the same factors I’ve presented being considered, be entitled to the same judgement: no further legal punishment.
There’s something so typically American about seeing this case as one where, unless the convicted felon has actually served “serious time” in prison, he’s “gotten off scot free” and hasn’t really suffered anything to speak of. I guess that’s because in American culture, we aren’t inclined to take account of a person’s inner life, his mental state as a feeling, suffering, human being. The world, it seems, is so very simple and easy. Guilty, ergo, must be punished by law. Attacked, ergo, must be avenged, etc.
“You’re either with us or you’re against us,” a man declared.
I think the facts that he paid a cash settlement and that the victim doesn’t want to see him further punished are factors which should be considered during sentencing. His clean record in the ensuing years should also be considered. I’m all for taking the whole person and the whole case into consideration.
But you can’t flee trial and get away with it just because you elude authorities for a long time. You can’t escape your guilt just because you’ve suffered some mental anguish.
Let a judge and jury decided the appropriate punishment. If it isn’t jail time, I’m fine with that. There is a big difference between recognizing that there are mitigating factors and giving someone a complete pass.
Good for you. I applaud all those recognitions.
Let’s turn up “the heat” and put ourselves in his place.
Would you, then, in his situation, now drop objections to extradition and cooperatively return to the U.S. to face a new sentencing hearing which (let’s assume for the sake of argument) includes the possibility that you’re liable for years of imprisonment— that is, in effect, the previous much-discussed “deal” is now null and void and you’re open to “having the book thrown at you”?
Second scenario: It’s your spouse (again, for the sake of argument, we assume she’s in this kind of predicament) in this situation or a son of yours, what do you do? Turn her or him into the authorities? Urge her or him to surrender, but without taking upon yourself notifying the police, etc., assuming that doing so would mean an arrest and possible extradition, of course…
what do you do in these sample situations?
Me? Clearly, in his place, with the same fact-set, I would fight extradition to the fullest extent. And, similarly, in no similar circumstnaces would I either turn in a son or a spouse to the authorities or advise him or her to surrender.
There are other situations where I certainly would do either of those (but not where a death penalty was possible, since I oppose that as a rule in all cases.)