It's not only, Glenn, that you're tops in integrity and being informed, but that you write so well that makes you invaluable. I was trying to keep track of all this stuff during your absence, but you clarified more here for me in one article than I got from any ten articles I read last week.

I had the same reaction I often have to Bolling - burst out laughing about 30 seconds after I finished reading it.

It's possible to agree with Moore in theory and still find his tactics sloppy and ineffective (though his zombie-like followers don't like to allow for the existence of any potential gray areas, maybe because gray areas tend to demand actual thought).

I started reading this review against my better judgment and quit after being insulted. Despite my own career as a professor and author of several books, it turns out I am a zombie-like follower of Michael Moore who can't admit the existence of gray areas, since I found "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11," and "Sicko" well argued and powerfully moving. Had I gotten my doctorate in film rather than music, I guess I would have learned that wide-eyed innocence was not an attitude I was supposed to take into a movie theater. My faux pas.

I certainly feel more comfortable with this editorial than the other, more vindictive one. What Polanski did was detestable, but it was more than 30 years ago. Isn't there a statute of limitations? In my neighborhood there was an awful rape in 1997, and the guy was never found, but after seven years he could have confessed in the town newspaper and they couldn't have touched him. Maybe that's a terrible thing, but it's the law. One of the reasons we lock up criminals is so they'll learn their lesson and won't repeat their crimes; I haven't heard about Polanski and any more recent 13-year-olds. And while I certainly don't consider him a hero, and don't think the quality of his art justifies him as a person, I feel queasy about the eye-for-an-eye savagery of many of these letters. We've got a lot bigger criminals running around free, doing tons more damage not only with impunity but being publicly honored for their misdeeds.

P.S. I thought "baroque" was an elegant word choice.

I completely agree that this is a case of clear-cut rape, and I appreciate your clarification about statutes of limitations. However, it strikes me that the reason we have statutes of limitations is from a sense that to punish a person decades after a crime is committed serves so little purpose that we save it for extraordinary circumstances like murder and war crimes. Technically, I guess the state has the power to do whatever it wants to Polanski. Humanly, it seems to me like the time is up, given that punishment no longer serves the purpose of preventing him from repeating his crime - and the idea that we have to do it to deter other potential rapists strikes me as wishful thinking. What's left sounds too much like revenge, perhaps mixed with envy.

They (Republicans, including Prescott Bush) tried to to this to FDR, too, in 1933. Luckily, they tried to get an honest general on their side, Smedley Butler, who feigned interest until he had enough evidence, then turned the bastards in. Let's hope Obama's as lucky.

Fascist coup against FDR:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm

I finally tracked down the entire original photo on the internet, because my curiosity was piqued. I've rarely seen a less erotic photo in my life. You've got to be kidding. It's just a kid, no breasts, hidden pudenda. The make-up makes no difference whatever. Somebody got upset over this? I guess if you've got a dirty enough mind practically anything can turn you on.

Looks to me like everyone [you quote] has the same opinion.

Bull's-eye. Why is no one angry at the authorities who could have picked him up 25 years ago - back when it mattered - and didn't?

From Slate:

“Why did the Swiss choose this moment to arrest Polanski? Because the United States asked them to. The authorities over there might have nabbed Polanski in years past, given that he owns a home in a Swiss skiing town and travels there regularly. State and federal prosecutors in the United States may have begun tracking the director's movements more carefully this year after Polanski tried in December to have his case dismissed from abroad. (Moving to have your criminal charges dropped while you're still on the run is a good way to infuriate prosecutors.)”

Events also seem to have been precipitated by the half-sympathetic documentary recently made about the case.

I have no intention of defending Polanski or his heinous crime. But leaving his behavior aside, it strikes me as capriciously vengeful to suddenly arrest a 76-year-old for a crime he admitted to at 44 after basically leaving his case on the back burner for 32 years. If he had eluded a massive manhunt all this time, I’d feel differently. Justice delayed is justice denied, and this justice was denied past redemption long ago. Just my opinion, obviously unpopular.

I think all the stuff Glenn Greenwald put in his column on the topic is extremely important, and not at all to be dismissed.

Still - by presiding over the recent UN summit Obama reaffirmed the rest of the world's importance, and I bless him for that. Perhaps we should look at the prize not as an accurate reflection of Obama's record so far, but as a measure of how the world's opinion of us has changed for electing him. I certainly can't consider it bad news.