It's time for Polanski to face some consequences for his actions

WASHINGTON — Hasn't Roman Polanski suffered enough? Didn't he endure all those cool, gray, rainy Paris winters? Wasn't he forced — well, not forced, but strongly enticed — to subsist all those years on overpriced fare served up by haughty waiters in Michelin-starred restaurants? Didn't he survive for decades having his vacation options limited, essentially, to the grim monotony of the south of France?

I've got a better question: Shouldn't Polanski and his many apologists give us a break?

I'm a huge fan of Polanski's work. "Chinatown" is one of my favorite movies of all time, "Rosemary's Baby" is a masterpiece, and he richly deserved the Oscar he won as best director for "The Pianist." He's a great artist. Maybe his next film will be a prison movie.

Brilliant auteur or no, Polanski has been a fugitive from U.S. justice since 1978. And there was certainly no artistic merit in the crime he acknowledged committing: During a photo shoot at the Los Angeles home of his friend and "Chinatown" star Jack Nicholson, Polanski plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and drugs and had sex with her.

That is grotesque. In general, I agree with the European view that Americans tend to be prudish and hypocritical about sex. But a grown man drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl? That's not remotely a close call.

It's wrong in any moral universe — and deserves harsher punishment than three decades of gilded exile.

Polanski went on the lam after pleading guilty to the crime. He had a deal with prosecutors under which he would essentially walk out of the courtroom a free man — he had spent 42 days in prison undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and the arrangement was that he would be sentenced to time served. But Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, said to be something of a publicity hound, was going to refuse to honor the plea bargain and instead impose a prison term. So the director skipped town and surfaced in France, where authorities ruled that his crime wasn't covered by extradition treaties with the United States.

He was arrested Sunday in Zurich, where he had traveled to accept an award — and where the extradition treaty does cover his crime. Assuming that Polanski puts up a legal fight, it could be months or even years before he is sent back to the United States.

The Justice Department was right to have Polanski nabbed at the Zurich airport and should pursue the case to the end. We've waited this long; we can wait a little longer.

Polanski has dual French-Polish citizenship, and officials in Paris and Warsaw are outraged. Which makes me outraged.