ABC News:

Roman Polanski makes his first public acknowledgement about Samantha Geimer, the 13-year-old model he sexually assaulted in Los Angeles, in a documentary on his life that premiered Tuesday at the Zurich Film Festival.

“She is a double victim: my victim, and a victim of the press,” Polanski says of Geimer in Laurent Bouzereau’s “Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir.” Polanski took to the stage at the Zurich Film Festival Tuesday to accept a lifetime achievement award two years after he was originally intended to receive it, as he was arrested and incarcerated in a Zurich prison at the request of U.S. authorities when he arrived to receive the honor in 2009.

Here’s Samantha Geimer, the woman Polanski raped when she was 13, on GMA today, “He didn’t mean to hurt me.”:

—–

We should all be relieved Geimer has a sense of closure with respect to the crime Polanski committed against her. But Polanski also committed a crime against society. But because Polanski’s a wealthy celebrity with powerful friends, he’s been able to escape justice for decades now. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter how poorly the system treated him or even that his victim has accepted his apology. In the real world outside of child raping-excusing Hollywood, you do the crime, you go through the system and if the system is unjust in some way, there are other parts of the system to remedy that.

If you fix cars for a living or clean hotel rooms, those are your options. But if you’re one of the Beautiful People, you flee to lavish resorts, continue to work with A-listers, and are greeted like some kind of folk hero from the planet Child Molester.

Want to know what would end the media storm that gives Ms. Geimer (understandably) so much stress and anxiety? If people would stop making movies in defense of Polanski, if Polanski would go into seclusion and stop participating in those movies, and if film festivals would stop honoring Polanski.

Isn’t it amazing how the very same people who attack the media for giving Geimer so much grief are also the ones who constantly feed the media. And by participating in this documentary, isn’t Polanski doing just that?

Better yet, nothing would end the talk about this crime faster than if Polanski would turn himself in and pay his debt to society. Once he did so, once he was no longer a fugitive, we could all move on.

The only people keeping this story alive are Polanski and his defenders. 

According to the police report, a naked D-S-k pulled the woman into a bedroom, and sexually assaulted her. She fought, but he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex. She escaped, told the hotel staff, who called police.

—–

Now in just about every article, three facts pop up.

One, that Strauss-Khan is known in France, as “the great seducer,” which means they must set the bar pretty low.

Using their standards, Ted Bundy’s a Casanova.

And then there’s the constant reminder of the French, jaded view toward a leader’s sexual appetites – a progressive, permissive attitude that lets them mock those repressed yanks.

Yep – the French are so evolved, that maybe this is no big deal.

She’s just a maid. She’s probably lying. It’s a trap.

My favorite line comes from an ecology Minister named Nathalie Koscuisko-Morizet , who says there is another “clear victim, which is France.”

That’s from a French lady.

Which is maybe why, a previous victim of Straus-Khan didn’t press charges. Tristane Banon was attacked, but says, “I didn’t want to be known, to the end of my days, as the girl who had a problem with the politician.”

Finally, we’re told this guy’s a socialist. Yet, here he is flying first class, renting a three grand a night room. and maybe attacking women.

But socialism is such a grand idea – so much bigger than those who champion it, that it never matters if said champion is a creep. Their awfulness is justified by their desire for social justice.

Which, historically, ends up killing millions anyway.

And if you disagree, you’re a racist homophobe.

Tonights guests:

Joe Devito

Lori Rothman

Krystal Ball

Ashley Judd’s no conservative, that’s for sure, but the predicted backlash has already begun. Here’s where it started – excerpts from her memoir:

Along with other performers, YouthAIDS was supported by rap and hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy to spread the message…um, who? Those names were a red flag.

“As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music — with it’s rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’ — is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.

“I believe that the social construction of gender — the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women — is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.”

After the backlash hit, Judd got in touch with rap mogul Russell Simmons. He interviewed her for his website. To her credit she didn’t appear to back down:

My intention was to support artists to know that they have so much power. They make incredible life changing impressions, particularly on the young. And we have choices everyday with our expressions, either empower and celebrate people or to re-enforce inequality and degradation. We are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. There is no in-between.

There are elements, and that is the part that has been so distorted, what I’m being accused of is condemning rap and hip-hop as a whole, and the whole community and when they say community, they mean the fans, and African-Americans, it’s become so generalized. …

My intention was to take a stand to say the elements of that musical expression that are misogynistic and treat girls and women in a hyper-sexualized way that are inappropriate. That is not acceptable in any artistic expression, in any cultural form, whether its country music or in television story lines. And if they read more than one paragraph in the book, they would see that all four hundred pages are about that.

Like Bill Maher and the threat of Islamo-fascism, this is an important debate to have within the world of popular entertainment culture and it’s going to take the rare liberal moire interested in truth than being politically correct to have it. 

Hopefully, this will encourage others to speak out.

Michael Moore apparently does have the capacity to know right from wrong with this clarification for his recent comments about the Julian Assange rape case being a “bunch of hooey” and Tommy Christopher has the wrap of the story:

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founderJulian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show in which he failed to address the protest directly, but made their imprint obvious in his transformed rhetoric on rape accusations. In a crowning irony, the man whose zeal for transparency-God Julian Assange started this protest finally made direct acknowledgement of it…in a private Twitter message to #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle.

Moore’s clarification on The Rachel Maddow Show went like this:

Every woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted or raped has to be, must be, taken seriously. Those charges have to be investigated to the fullest extent possible. For too long, and too many women have been abused in our society, because they were not listened to, and they just got shoved aside… The older people here remember how it used to be. It’s not that much better now, it got a little better, because of the women’s movement made that happen.

His statements must be cleansing to his soul and address Doyle, but the timing does appear that they are also in response to the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network’s (RAINN) statement, Big Hollywood, and other mainstream outrage:

Yana Walton of the Women’s Media Center told The Daily Caller that progressive activists such as Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann, in their treatment and coverage of the charges against Assange, have made light of rape allegations and put blame on the alleged victims.

“When sexual violence and rape is such a huge part of women’s lives internationally I don’t think it is ever helpful to legitimize it. Rape is rape is rape is rape, and should be prosecuted as such,” Walton said.

It is not, however, just the left that has caused harm to women with the coverage of this case, Walton says. According to Walton, it is anti-female to care about rape only when there are other factors at play — in this case, the leakage of highly sensitive documents.

“Rape should be taken seriously regardless of the situation. And to sort of pick and chose when you deploy gender and care for women and sexual violence against women is doing just as much of a disservice to women,” Walton said.

For Moore, I’m sure this was hard as it took him a week to make it right and walk back his insensitive comments.  As cleansing this is to the soul, Moore needs to do, er, more.  He has no problem donating his cash to politicians and alleged rapists, so I’m going to take it one step further and ask him to really show some compassion for victims of sexual abuse by donating the same amount he gave Assange for bail–$20,000–to RAINN.  RAINN was co-founded by singer and rape survivor Tori Amos and Moore could truly show his Hollywood pals, some of whom are survivors of rape and sexual abuse, and women everywhere that he really is sorry.  As for Keith Olbermann, well you could toss in a few bucks, too.

I know the people at RAINN.  They work tirelessly to provide counseling to rape and sexual abuse victims–especially with the new online hotline–which I helped raise the primary funding for along with their team a couple of years ago.  I have friends who are survivors and I’m sure you do too.  Moore has the opportunity to really make a difference now and walk the talk.  With money tight for so many donors in this brutal economy, donations to charities are down, but with Moore’s movies grossing over $187 million, I’m sure he doesn’t need the money as one of his favorite political organizations, MoveOn, tells us.  So, Mr. Moore just how compassionate to rape victims are you?  Will you click and donate?  Donations are tax-deductible, if that helps.

Enter Mr. Wikileaks, Julian Assange.

Any enemy of America has a friend in Michael Moore and what better way to get a little ink and feel the warm glow of those MSNBC studio lights than to post part of Julian Assange’s bail and offer up his own website as an outlet for any and all of this brave truth-tellers leaks. But because there’s a God and because He is a good and noble God with a delicious sense of humor, the best laid plans of rat and liar have just completely blown up in Michael Moore’s face — twice in a single week.

For starters,  in his knee-jerk zeal to defend America’s enemies, Moore brought a public relations nightmare down on his and host Keith Olbermann’s head late last week, earning the label “rape apologist” even from many of his own fans after dismissing some pretty serious rape charges against Assange as nothing more than ”hooey.” 

Then — just when you thought it couldn’t get any better — Moore’s own hero dropped this bomb on the anti-American director regarding his 2007 documentary “Sicko.”

 All hail Wikileaks:

Cuba banned Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a “mythically” favourable picture of Cuba’s healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a “popular backlash”, according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.

Castro’s government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it “knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”

Whether or not this is true, we don’t know — at least for now. (Rumors about “Sicko” being banned in Cuba aren’t anything new. Lacking the sex appeal of Wikileaks, they just weren’t given much attention until now.)

But the result is that for the second day in a row, Micheal Moore is over at the HuffPo playing Wikileaks’ defense, claiming the leaked “Sicko” cable was nothing more than Cuba telling the world what it wanted to hear and that “Sicko” was in fact broadcast on Cuban television. But Moore’s mouth is moving, so who knows. When it comes to truthfulness, asking us to choose between Michael Moore and a murderous Communist government is asking too much.

While the irony here is is so obvious one need not point it out, I’m still going to. Moore bailed this scumbag out of jail, hailed him as some sort of brave truth teller and now Moore’s the one whose reputation is taking a harsher beating than anyone in the American government he so despises. It’s Michael Moore who’s having to explain himself, not the NSA or CIA. 

And this just one day after Moore was forced to again hit the HuffPo in a desperate attempt to talk his way out of that hearty helping of rape apologia he cooked up for his hero Assange in what was such a disastrous appearance on “Countdown” for both Moore and his host that Keith Olbermann’s been forced to suspend his Twitter account to avoid the only kind of outrage the former sportscaster can’t deal with — outrage from his own supporters.

Michael Moore: Rape Apologist.

Michael Moore: A socialist liar whose propaganda is so out there even murderous Communist dictators don’t believe it.

It must be true, Wikileaks told me so.

There just isn’t enough popcorn in the world.

What’s the magic number of victims before you withdraw your support?

This might surprise you, but to we unsophisticated types — no matter how awesome Chinatown was – one is enough; a guilty plea followed by a flight from justice is enough. But because you’re sophisticated, we have to ask.

For the record, if you care, if you’re bothering to keep track, the number is now three:

Another woman has come forward charging that Roman Polanski raped her in 1974, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

The woman, who was 21 at the time, reported the alleged sexual assault to the Los Angeles District Attorney in May and was interviewed by authorities.

Edith Michelle Vogelhut, a former model also known as Shelli Paul, told authorities Polanski “handcuffed” her at actor Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood house where he was staying, then sodomized her repeatedly, before he passed out, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

Polanski’s already gearing up his next film project, “God of Carnage,” and over at the L.A. Times the Culture Monster’s giddy and grooving and without a hint of irony launching a fan-boy poll over who the child rapist should cast.  

Good.

This story has never been about Polanski. He’s a lost cause, as evil as evil can be. This story has always been about Hollywood; about the indecency and depravity of those willing to enable and champion this evil. 

Another Polanski film is just another opportunity for us to learn who they are.

One week ago today, on Monday, July 12 we learned that Switzerland would not extradite director Roman Polanski back to the United States to face sentencing for a crime he has already pleaded guilty to – having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year old girl after he drugged her in 1977.

Most Americans know the story.

The Oscar winning director of “Chinatown,” “The Pianist,” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” was accused of luring the girl to Jack Nicholson’s house while the actor was out of town under the guide of having a modeling shoot with the child. Once the girl arrived, Polanski allegedly gave her champagne and part of a Quaalude, and then had sexual intercourse with her.

Some Americans have argued that the crime happened so long ago that prosecutors should simply move on.

Actress Whoopi Goldberg once insinuated what Polanski did may not fit the legal definition of rape in some countries – which actually turned out to be inaccurate.

Others have suggested that because Polanski’s mother was killed in a Nazi concentration camp and his wife Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson’s cult he should be shown compassion.

All of those people are wrong though.

What Roman Polanski did was a cruel, disturbing, selfish act that tormented the life of a young girl and has haunted her throughout her womanhood.

A possible victim of Stockholm Syndrome or perhaps just emotionally exhausted, the victim herself has recently withdrawn her long standing adamant requests to see Polanski sentenced, and now says she just wants the case to go away so she can put it behind her.

Certainly, she deserves compassion and respect. But if we put this case behind us without seeing justice done then it’s only a sending a message to other sexual predators, celebrities and wealthy people who commit crimes that justice delayed is justice denied.

For decades the Swiss have helped people evade justice under the pretense they are neutral. They are not neutral.

They illegally shielded money the Nazis stole from the Jews during the Holocaust. It is widely known they help people who hide money they’ve stolen from fraudulent transactions, and in this case, they are an accessory after the fact in helping Polanski evade justice for raping a child.

Switzerland is evil.

Their policies of so-called neutrality are evil and they are cowardly. I can’t think of anything more cowardly than hiding behind the guise of neutrality when a crime has been committed against an innocent person or people. There is no gray. There is good and there is evil. It is in fact black and white.

As a former prosecutor who now selectively practices criminal defense, I often hear other criminal defense lawyers justify their actions when they represent defendants who are guilty of violent crimes – something I won’t do. They say that they do it for the system, that everyone deserves a good defense and that they’re not the ones who committed the crime.

But anyone with a moral conscience knows those are all pathetic excuses. Anytime anyone uses their own power to shield evil – or refuses to use the power they have to stop it, they are committing an act of evil themselves.

When someone makes an innocent person suffer they deserve to suffer themselves through the civil system of justice we have created. Without consequences, a message is sent to the perpetrator and other would-be perpetrators that it’s okay to hurt someone again.

Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand once wrote that, “Whenever good and evil compromise, evil always wins.” She was right. In this case, Switzerland has compromised their morality and responsibility to the global community to extradite a convicted child rapist.

Evil has won.

—–

Since Whoopi Goldberg’s pretending to be all about specifics and facts — and I say pretending because what she’s trying to do is pull off an unconscionable debating ploy that allows her to assume the role of a moral superior even as she defends evil — here are the real specifics and facts, straight from the victim.

WARNING: What’s below the fold is graphic and harrowing. [Translation: What's below the fold is something only a Progressive Hollywood Leftist could defend]:

On March 10, 1977, Polanski picked up the 13-year-old victim at her house and took her to Jack Nicholson’s home for a modeling shoot. The victim testified that Polanski served her champagne and gave her part of a Quaalude before getting in a whirlpool bath with her while they were naked. No one else was home.

Q: What happened then?

A: He goes, ‘Come down here.’ And I said, ‘No. No, I got to get out.’ And he goes, ‘No, come down here.’ And then I said that I had asthma and that I couldn’t — I had to get out because of the warm air and the cold air or something like that. And he said, ‘Just come down here for a second.’ So I finally went down. And then he went — there was a lot of Whirlpool bath jets. He goes, ‘Doesn’t it feel better down here?’ And he was like holding me up because it is almost over my head. And I went, ‘Yeah, but I better get out.’ So I got out.

___

The victim testified that after she left the whirlpool bath, Polanski told her to go into a nearby bedroom and lie down.

A: I was going, ‘No, I think I better go home,’ because I was afraid. So I just went and I sat down on the couch.

Q: What were you afraid of?

A: Him.

(a few minutes later)

A: He sat down beside me and asked me if I was OK.

Q: What did you say, if anything?

A: I said, ‘No.’

Q: What did he say?

A: He goes, ‘Well, you’ll be better.’ And I go, ‘No, I won’t. I have to go home.’

Q: What happened then?

A: He reached over and he kissed me. And I was telling him, ‘No,’ you know, ‘Keep away.’

___

After Polanski kissed her, the victim alleged, he began to engage in oral sex.

A: … I was ready to cry. I was kind of — I was going, ‘No. Come on. Stop it.’ But I was afraid.

Q: And what did he say, if anything?

A: He wasn’t saying anything that I can remember. He was — sometimes he was saying stuff, but I was just blocking him out, you know.

___

The victim testified that Polanski began having sex with her, but sodomized her when he learned she wasn’t using birth control.

A: He asked, he goes, ‘Are you on the pill?’ And I went, ‘No.’ And he goes, ‘When did you last have your period?’ And I said, I don’t know. A week or two. I’m not sure.’

Q: And what did he say?

A: He goes, ‘Come on. You have to remember.’ And I told him I didn’t.

Q: Did he say anything after that?

A: Yes. He goes, ‘Would you want me to go through your back? And I went, ‘No.’

___

The victim testified that after the sex, she got dressed and waited in the car for Polanski to drive her home. Before driving her home, he asked her to keep the incident a secret.

A: He said to me, he goes, ‘Oh, don’t tell your mother about this.’ …

Q: What did you say?

A: I wasn’t saying anything. He says, ‘Don’t tell your mother about this and don’t tell your boyfriend either.’ … He said something like, ‘This is our secret.’ And I went, ‘Yeah.’ And then later he said, ‘You know, when I first met you I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything like this with you.’

___

Source: Transcript of the grand jury testimony in The People of the State of California v. Roman Raymond Polanski. March 24, 1977.

When British actress Charlotte Lewis first came forward to accuse fugitive director Roman Polanski of abusing her in 1983 at a press conference last week, one of the more intriguing statements was made by her attorney Gloria Allred:

“[Ms. Lewis] did present fresh complaint evidence to law enforcement, and it is in their possession.”

The Polanski-loving media didn’t mention this. They prefer a ”He Said, She Said” argument. Upon hearing this, however, my first thought was that a witness would be interesting, though obviously unlikely.

This is me speculating, but in a just-released statement Ms. Lewis might have revealed what that fresh complaint evidence is. And while it’s not a witness to the crime, it is the next best thing:

I stand by my statements to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, and would welcome the chance to confront Roman Polanski face to face anytime, anywhere in the world because I am telling the truth and he knows it,” Ms Lewis said.

“Further, shortly after the incident with Mr Polanski when I was 16 I told a friend the truth about how Mr Polanski had taken advantage of me.

“My attorney, Gloria Allred, delivered a notarised statement to law enforcement from that friend and it supports my statement.”

According to Ms. Lewis, under penalty of perjury, someone has made a sworn statement that Ms. Lewis told them Polanski took advantage of her — and told them shortly after the incident.

This is push-back from the Lewis camp now that a contradictory interview she gave in 1999 has started to circulate. But this was expected. Last Sunday Ms. Lewis gave the Mail Online a lengthy interview where these contradictory statements were mentioned:

In another interview in 1999 Charlotte went on to claim that she did have a relationship with Polanski. But that it started after she had been cast in the film and when she was 17.

‘I wanted him probably more than he wanted me,’ she said then, claiming that they were lovers for six months in an affair that ended only when they began filming Pirates in Tunisia. She claimed afterwards that she’d been misquoted.

I’ve been waiting for Polanski’s many apologists to dredge up the 1999 story. That’s not to say it’s unfair for them to do so or irrelevant to the case, but that we knew this was coming before it hit and that Ms. Lewis was already on record claiming she was misquoted is not a small thing.

Nor is a corroborating witness to what Ms. Lewis herself described:

“Mr. Polanski knew that I was only just 16 years when he met me and forced himself upon me in his apartment in Paris. He took advantage of me[.]“

In the comment section please do explain how France’s age of consent law being 16 makes it okay to “force” yourself on a young girl and take “advantage” of her.

Please do enlighten us as to how that law is in any way at all relevant to these charges.

—–

Director Paul Verhoeven doesn’t like all the violence in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion” because Jesus Christ’s suffering freeing us from our sins is ”not true,” is not all that different from the painful way in which a lot of people die (so why make such a big deal out of it?), and is not what Christ is “about.”

Here’s what Christ is “about,” according to Verhoeven’s book, “Jesus of Nazareth”:

Verhoeven constructs a new vision of Jesus as a child born from the rape of Mary by a Roman soldier, as a spiritualist who performed exorcisms by screaming and spitting in the mouths of the possessed to drive out demons, and as a militant revolutionary who urged his followers to arm themselves.

The good news is that Verhoeven would like to bring his interpretation of the life of Christ to the screen. You know, because he’s money-driven, not agenda-driven… Just another greedy Hollywood capitalist. Funny how non-believers spend so much time, energy and aggression attacking something that’s, uhm, not real. You’d think they’d give leprechauns and unicorns a little grief, but for some reason they’re always drawn to Christianity.

Wonder why?