Why Are People Protesting Polanski's Arrest? What Am I Missing?

I must be missing something, why is everyone defending "poor Roman Polanski" the guy did not skip town over a traffic violation.

In 1977, Roman Polanski, then aged 44, drugged and raped 13-year-old Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer). On March 10, 1977 at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles.

"We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says. "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." She recalled in a 2003 interview that she began to feel uncomfortable after he asked her to lie down on a bed, and how she attempted to resist. "I said, 'No, no. I don't want to go in there. No, I don't want to do this. No!', and then I didn't know what else to do," she stated, adding: "We were alone and I didn’t know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured well, I guess I’ll get to come home after this".Geimer testified that Polanski gave her a combination of champagne and quaaludes, a sedative drug, then kissed her, performed cunnilingus on her, penetrated her vaginally, and then penetrated her anally, each time after being told 'no' and being asked to stop

We are not talking about a 17 1/2 year old, "Judge I swear she said she was 18." Polanski drugged and liquored up and raped a 13 year old child, then he scooted out of the country and this is the reaction we get from morally bankrupt Hollywood :

The surprise detention of Roman Polanski has been met with indignation in Hollywood and sparked a flurry of media speculation over the real reason behind Saturday night's arrest in Zurich.

Film mogul Harvey Weinstein has got behind a campaign by French film-makers calling on US authorities not to extradite the Oscar-winning Polish director in connection with a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor dating back more than three decades.

Weinstein entered the fray at the personal behest of Cannes film festival director Thierry Fremaux and will now use his considerable influence and campaigning heft to enlist the support of Hollywood.

"We're calling on every film-maker we can to help fix this terrible situation," Weinstein said, reviving a theme he adopted earlier in the year after he bought international distribution rights at Sundance to the HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

The film uncovered flaws in the legal case against the director, prompting Weinstein to allude to a possible campaign to get the charges against Polanski dropped. At a hearing this year a Los Angeles superior court judge agreed there was "substantial misconduct" in the original hearing.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times this morning, film columnist Patrick Goldstein questioned the ethics of a potential move by the LA County district attorney's office to spend taxpayer's money on extraditing Polanski at a time of severe statewide budget cuts.

"[A]t a time when California is shredding the safety net that protects the poor and the unemployed, not to mention the budget of the public school system, you'd hope that LA County prosecutors had better things to do than cause an international furor [sic] by hounding a film director for a 32-year-old sex crime, especially one that Polanski's victim wants to put it behind her," Goldstein wrote.

Meanwhile the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum had this to say: "To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system."

Focus has turned to why the arrest has come now, even though Polanski used to own a home in Switzerland and, according to his agent Jeff Berg of ICM, spent much of this summer in the country editing his latest film, The Ghost.

.....Polanski fled the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to the unlawful sexual intercourse charges and faces up to 50 years in jail should LA County prosecutors commence proceedings and choose to request an extradition.

"Whether the LA County district attorney's office has its way or not, it is not a story that can have a happy ending," Goldstein added in the Los Angeles Times. "I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn't enough."

There aren't many crimes worse than drugging and raping a 13-year-old child. Roman Polanski plead guilty to a lesser charge and then skirted the law by leaving town. I believe that his punishment has been long over-due, and his Hollywood supporters should be ashamed of them selves. Just because Polanski has talent as a film maker doesn't make him any different than any other child predator.

I wonder how Polanski would react if Charles Manson, the man responsible for the murder of his first wife, Sharon Tate and their unborn child was suddenly let out of Jail because its been 40 years. At least Manon spent time in Jail for his crimes.