So As predicted, the euphoria over the killing of Usama bin laden, would soon be followed by its opposite, from thoughtful idiots around the globe.

Yes, expressing joy is unpolished and inelegant – for we live in a time where an acknowledgment of evil seems outdated – while the fascination with it, isn’t.

According to the muddled moral midgets in the media, America acted like one monstrous, murderous frat boy, drunk with glee.

And, of course, the intelligentsia, home and abroad, agrees. You can vaintly hear Gore Vidal wince at our cheers.

But that could be his new thong (it chafes).

So while celebrating bin Laden’s death is seen as crass, it’s still okay that Johnny Depp collects art by John Wayne Gacey, or that Marilyn Manson once recorded a song by Charles Manson.

It’s “edgy” to play with evil, but never to judge it.

Also weird? We live in a culture where it’s acceptable to lavish praise or express ridiculous emotion over smarmy pop icons, argue endlessly over which Radiohead CD is best, or what sports figure – who doesn’t even know you – should be in the Hall of Fame.

There are riots after NBA championships, and parades for World Series victors. And of course, there are people who just can’t shut up about their nephew hitting a home run against Napa High.

(Well done Garrett. Your uncle used to swing like that.)

Anyway, thousands of teenage girls scream over Justin Bieber. And thousands of gay men scream for Lady Gaga.

But get emotional over the death of a maniac? That’s unseemly.

Fact is, the media loves emotion when it’s over something pointless.

But if it’s over something meaningful- they condemn it.

The reason?

They hate you.

Tonight:

Anthony Cumia!

Amy Schumer!

actor, and newcomer Sean Kanan!

Roman Polanski’s best films, like all great films, are very moral—in particular Chinatown and The Pianist. They deal with socially repugnant behavior (incest, domestic abuse, prejudice, oppression, war) and the human spirit’s attempt to triumph over ethical transgression and evil-doing. But as a new allegation of sexual assault surfaced against the director last week, the famous filmmaker’s life has been anything but a model of morality. 

So why do some in the entertainment industry have such a hard time separating the two? Why is it so hard for them to judge the art with the yardstick of criticism and the life with the yardstick of justice? Whence the urge to intermingle the two and excuse the opprobrium of the one because of the merit of the other? 

Despite the fact that in 1977 Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor (legally equivalent to statutory rape), his apologists typically downplay—or outright forgive—the director’s crime on one of five grounds: (1) the rape occurred over 30 years ago; (2) he’s paid his debt to society; (3) he’s a nice man being persecuted because of his religion and/or celebrity; (4) the victim was somehow complicit; and (5) he’s an accomplished valuable artist. 

Last year 138 film industry workers, including such luminaries as Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar, signed a petition put forth by the French artistic alliance SACD (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) protesting Polanski’s arrest and demanding his immediate release. 

Here are a few examples of some of Polanski’s well-known apologists expressing their support for the Polish admitted pedophile following his arrest. Notice how, regardless of the defender, one (or a combination) of the above five rationalizations is always alleged in Polanski’s favor. 

Woody Allen (May 15, to French radio station RTL): “It’s something that happened many years ago… he has suffered…. He has paid his dues, he has had a hard life…He’s an artist, he’s a nice person, he did something wrong and he paid for it.” 

Gore Vidal (in an October 2009 interview with The Atlantic): “I really don’t give a f–k. Look am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s being taken advantage of?… The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew… well, the story is totally different now from what it was then … Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski.” 

Whoopi Goldberg (September 2009 on The View): “It wasn’t ‘rape’ rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was ‘rape’ rape.” [Note: Even in her subsequent clarification Goldberg continued to minimize Polanski’s crime.] 

No matter what line of defense the apologist takes, however, the real motive that seems to underlie this Instinct for clemency, whether explicitly stated or not, is the last—the fact that Polanski is a valued and valuable artist, a brilliant filmmaker with an Academy Award to prove it. This earns him a “talent pass.” 

I come neither to bury Polanski nor to praise him, although I greatly admire his movies, especially the two aforementioned masterpieces. 

I only pose the question: Why are some so willing to issue talent a pass? Why are they so unwilling to accept the fact that a great filmmaker can be a pedophile or a pedophile a great filmmaker? It’s as if the admission of the one will diminish or negate the truth of the other. 

Is the notion even plausible, or at least worth entertaining, that without the vice there wouldn’t be the virtue? Is there some sort of “morality paradox” in play that could drive Polanski to explore the subject of sexual abuse in Chinatown and then enact it in real life only a few years later? Are they merely  manifestations—one artistic, one realistic—of the same obsession? And is the affirmative art—the grand and noble humanity of The Pianist, for example—a kind of conscious or subconscious act of expiation and atonement on the artist’s part for past transgressions? If so, should that affect the way we view the art or mitigate our condemnation of the artist’s sins in his private life? 

For some inexplicable reason we don’t issue the talent pass as readily to transgressors in other fields, especially politics. Politicians (Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, et alii) are held to a much higher standard. Their careers go down in flames instantly for minor, non-criminal sexual peccadilloes (although in the Edwards case campaign fund misappropriation charges may be forthcoming). Clinton would surely not have been reelected had the Lewinsky affair cropped up during his first term. But as someone had to pay the price, poor monogamous Al Gore got stuck with the Monica albatross around his neck and suffered significant undeserved backlash at the ballot box. 

Apparently, when issuing talent passes, we value the makers of law far less than the makers of art. What that says about us as a society bodes well for Hollywood box office receipts and less so for Washington legislators. There’s probably a morality paradox there, too. But the abiding conclusion is that, for many in the entertainment world, a great artist gets leeway that other mere mortals—even Presidents—can never dream of getting.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: Health Care Bill, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Nancy Pelosi, Consumer Option, President Obama, George W. Bush, World Series, Gore Vidal, Justin Timberlake, and Bruce Jenner.

In an interview published today, The Atlantic describes Gore Vidal as “a sharp provocateur, as irascible and irreverent as ever.”

I’m assuming that’s some kind of internal Atlantic-code for ”twisted old has-been degenerate desperate for attention“:

ATLANTIC: In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?

VIDAL: I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

Vidal then goes on to blame Polanski’s legal problems on…

“an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing …  The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko…”

Oh, it’s because Polanski’s Jewish… Now it all makes sense. We should’ve been looking at his being a Jew not his confession or his drugging and sodomizing a 13 year-old girl who obviously had it coming because she wasn’t wearing a communion dress.

Naturally Vidal will face no real outrage or consequence for describing a 13 year-old rape victim as a “hooker.”

He’s inoculated.

He’s a Leftist.