Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland after being a fugitive for 30 years following his guilty plea for raping a 13-year-old girl. Naturally, folks in Hollywood and elsewhere have been coming out of the woodwork to defend him. For my own part, I completely agree with Kate Harding:

The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not — and at least in theory, does not — tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you’ve made.

Roman Polanski raped a child. No one, not even him, disputes that.

Read the whole thing.