Media Bias

…and fails to disclose that her husband is lobbying for his release.

In 1977, 44-year-old movie director Roman Polanski pled guilty to raping a drunk and drugged 13-year-old girl. After plea-bargaining the drug/rape/sodomy charges down to unlawful sexual conduct with a child under 14 and serving 42 days for the evaluation period, Polanski fled to England, then France, to avoid extradition. He’d been on the run ever since. Until September 26. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland.

Anne Applebaum, Washington Post columnist, defended the child rapist, writing that he “can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski’s mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect.”

Got it? That Polanski and his family were in concentration camps and his wife was murdered are “mitigating circumstances” to his avoiding serving time for drugging and violating an intoxicated child. This was a column Applebaum should have written just to get it off her chest, then deleted. I’ve done the same many times myself.

Blogger Patterico found out that Applebaum’s husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, is a Polish politician who’s lobbying for the dismissal of Polanski’s case, and Applebaum failed to disclose this fact.

Uncovering this kind of thing is one of the reasons people blog. Back in the day, you had to find undisclosed conflicts of interest going through hard-copy documents (if you lacked personal knowledge), then calling the newspaper and/or sending a letter to the editor. Nowadays, a few minutes on Google and a blog will do.

Addendum: In a child rapist’s defense, Applebaum said it’s possible Polanski didn’t know the victim’s real age. Not likely, since he had to obtain the mother’s permission for the so-called photo shoot. Forgot to mention that part, and was reminded reading Hot Air.

Check out Polanski’s grand jury testimony.

Update: Mission almost accomplished? ACORN suspends new-client operations.

More videos to come? Check out Big Government.

***

This story should have been on the front page above the fold, not on page 14. But I suppose one should be “grateful” the Gray Lady covered it at all. Need I say, if this were a conservative scandal…

An excerpt (emphasis added):

“For months during last year’s presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.

“But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.
…
“On one of the videos, an unidentified Acorn employee in Washington, told that the pair were engaging in prostitution, explained how to disguise their activities in dealing with bankers and the government. “You don’t put down ‘I’m a prostitute’ or ‘I’m a lady of the night, and this is where I’m getting my income,’” the Acorn worker said.

“At the Baltimore office, a helpful worker suggested describing the prostitute on a loan application as a “freelance performing artist” and said she and the pimp might want to claim some of the young Salvadoran prostitutes as dependents and collect the child tax credit for them.”

Watch Part I of the undercover sting in the DC Office below. Watch the rest at Big Government.

Related post: ACORN’s Intelligence Deficiency