Roman Polanski ...

Roman Polanski was arrested for raping a 13 year old girl thirty years ago. At first, I was willing to give Polanski the benefit of a doubt. I will say it. The guy has had a traumatic life. He loses his mother in the holocaust, then he loses his wife and unborn child in the helter skelter killings. Now, I never would have given him special treatment legally because of this, but did I think he was necessarily a horrible person? No. Stuff like that leaves scars, and maybe that was just some manifestation of an emotional scar, a one time only occurrence which, well, I wasn't quite sure what happened, anyway, and maybe it wasn't that bad ... Well, it was. It was as bad as you can imagine and then some. Read the victim's testimony, and then go read some of Roman Polanski's later exploits, as detailed in his autobiography. Yes, Whoopie, it was "rape - rape." I don't know what you think "rape - rape" is, but I assure you, taking an underaged girl (No, it is not just a societal stigma. This matters because children depend on and trust adults, because they do not have the knowledge, skills, or life experience to take care of themselves), drugging her (with drugs and alcohol which could have killed her, by the way), and having intercourse with her even when she still objects is "rape - rape."

Even sadder than Hollywood backing up Polanski is the repeated treatment of victims of rape in this country, led by Hollywood and the press. More often than not, it is treated as the woman's fault. Polanski's victim says that every time this case comes up, her name is dragged through the mud by the press, who says that her mother was just trying to get her a movie role, or something like that. Heaven forbid it's the man's fault, especially when he is famous. This is not new. William Kennedy Smith raped someone on the beach at Ted Kennedy's house, but it was her fault, because, well, what kind of girl was she, anyway, walking alone with a man on the beach at night? What did she expect? No it doesn't matter that she was on the property, and in the company of the family of, a US Senator (even though he was a Kennedy) ... Any girl who would engage in such conduct should expect to be raped. When Clinton raped Paula Jones, she was dragged through the mud as trailer trash. Actually, she was a big - nosed, horse - faced piece of trailer trash, so she should just be glad that a man paid her any attention at all ... I've got news for you.

I don't care if a woman is walking naked down the darkest allyway in the US, she should not expect to be raped. It should not be excused if she is raped. It is never her fault.