Chris Hanson was on MSNBC Sunday night with the "raw footage" of his popular program To Catch a Predator. Some half dozen men were lured by the promise of sex with an underage girl, entrapped in a house wired for sight and sound, and then exposed to the glare of TV lights as wannabe predators. Men who arrived drooling over the prospect of a tryst were quickly reduced to slobbering remorsefully over their conduct. With the Roman Polanski case, we move far beyond the sleaze of bad intentions, of course, to actual deeds. Polanski also had the benefit of scores of eminent personalities offering the film director their moral support.
I tried to picture the likes of French Culture Minister, Frederic Mitterand, or the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, or the French philosopher, Bernard Henri-Levy, or Woody Allen, walking in from the wings, like Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall, and likewise vocally defending one or more of these morally dim light bulbs. But couldn't: It was too surreal. That said, the Polanski case has really driven home the meaning of the old expression "It's who you know."
Sincerely,
Orest Slepokura
Strathmore, Alta
