Forget it, Jake

Jeez, will everyone stop talking to me if I defend Roman Polanski? Not that he needs defending by an obscure Minneapolis copywriter, what with legal talent I couldn't afford five minutes of, and a bunch of famous directors speaking up for him. And no, I don't have daughters, nor am I a victim of sexual abuse, so I can't possibly understand.

But really. Do those people in the L.A. District Attorney's office have any criminals more dangerous to chase? If they've got some spare time, they might go to the movies. Or is this one of those vote-getting adventures that's class-related, where the D.A. is picking up a lot of prole votes for prosecuting the small foreign pervert who makes films where things don't blow up.

And the Swiss. Since they have little interest in culture, but lots of interest in money, and they've done nothing about it for 30 years, someone must have paid them. Why now?

I don't think it's ok to have sex with 13 year olds, even if the Roman Catholic church does condone it. Nor am I saying Polanski should escape punishment because he's one of the greatest artists who worked in the 20th century's most important medium. I don't have a good answer, but I do know that the 13 year old in question, now in her forties, has asked that Polanski be left alone. Maybe she's seen Chinatown.

You lie and the Big Lie

Sometimes I think I'm the last old commie who really believes in free speech. So I was relieved, even excited, to see that Dennis Kucinich had voted "no" and Barney Frank "present" on the vote to censure Joe Wilson. Wilson's yelling "you lie" was inappropriate and rude. It was also part of a calculated Republican Party disinformation campaign, a campaign of lies itself, meant to derail healthcare reform, bought and paid for by the insurance industry.

And that's all irrelevant.

What is relevant is that we live in a country, and profess a political ideology, that believes in free speech. Not polite free speech or appropriate free speech, but just plain free speech, even for people like Joe Wilson who would take it away in a second from people whose politics he didn't like.

Never forget that we've just been through eight years of Orwellian rule based on the Big Lie. We all have the right to ask why every congressperson and senator who sat and listened to George Bush lie to joint sessions of Congress didn't stand up and call him on it. We all have the right to ask why every news organization that reported Dick Cheney's lies didn't follow with a sidebar reporting the truth.

Maybe the representatives who voted to censure Joe Wilson should instead have spent their energies documenting the money trail behind the real lies about death panels. Muzzling one sad stooge hurts freedom. And does nothing to pass legislation that millions of people desperately need.