In Defense of Whoopi

You've probably seen the numerous posts on the right-wing of the blogosphere expressing outrage over Whoopi Goldberg's comments about the Polanski affair. In particular, her alleged offense is to excuse Polanksi in some way because what he did was not "rape-rape." However, as the following clip clearly shows, the point of her statement was not to excuse Polanski, but to make clear that the specific legal charge to which he plead guilty was not rape.



Whoopi is right. Polanski was initially charged with the specific crime of rape [California Penal Code Section 261], but this charge was dropped in return for Polanski pleading guilty to the crime of "unlawful sexual intercourse," [California Penal Code Section 261.5]:

Unlawful sexual intercourse is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person who is not the spouse of the perpetrator, if the person is a minor. For the purposes of this section, a "minor" is a person under the age of 18 years and an "adult" is a person who is at least 18 years of age.

I'm not a fan of Whoopi, especially as she appears on the View. And I'd certainly like to see Polanski pay for his crimes with real jail time. However, the outrage from the right-wing blogosphere over Whoopi's statement is unfair, if not disingenuous. I think Whoopi's attempt at assessing the case rationally should be applauded, not discouraged. This does not mean I agree with her about what should be the final outcome of the case, it simply means that I think we should be able to have a frank and reasoned discussion about it.