The Polanski equation
p(General Moral Outrage At Your Being Arrested When Having Committed A Serious Crime)=
f( artistic contribution, funny international politics, time from incident, age)
By these standards, Bono is free to commit armed robbery, Jasper Johns has a license to kill, and Shakespeare could have gotten away with a small genocide if he felt like one.
I seem to be in the minority (at least judging from the MSM) in finding it a tad bit improper that the French and Polish political elites have condemned the arrest of a fugitive self-confessed paedophile, that the Swiss have had to more or less say 'sorry', and that so many show-biz people feel morally outraged about the incident. I'm not saying the guy should be hanged and quartered, but is it really so bad to expect the law to apply to everyone regardless of their achievements and artistic contribution?
Kieran Healy rounds up some of the comments out there, and adds interesting insight.
