Forget It, Throwback. It's Chinatown.

At least with the Michael Jackson stuff, there was a nanometer sliver of a chance that nothing bad happened. You can't really say that with Roman Polanski. Yet the reactions are similar. In the wake of Jackson's death, everyone attempted to mitigate his wrongdoings. For Polanski, you have an extremely broad section of folks from Hollywood on down explaining why sodomizing a child after you've doped her up isn't all that bad.

What the hell is all this? When did we need a legal sliderule to work out whether or not a child molester needed to be punished for his crimes?

I mean, the guy made some good movies and all, but I'm not really sure why that makes rape ok. Does that mean that crap like The 9th Gate is admissible as evidence in favor of his prosecution? The next Oscar show will probably be especially nausea-inducing. I'm sure there will be something like 5 million shows of support for Polanski, maybe even his own montage, while simultaneously lecturing the world on morality, ethics, and responsibility.

Final queries. What if Polanski wasn't a famous director but a priest instead? What would the reaction be like for himself and those who so publicly defend him?

Just asking.