Taki Theodoracopulos’s nondefense defense of Roman Polanski (“The Limits of Compassion,” Under the Black Flag, December 2009) reads like the deluded ramblings of a washed-up bon vivant who desperately needs to be back in the good graces of the popular but poor soul who drugged and anally raped a 13-year-old girl.  Did the early tragedies in Mr. Polanski’s life give him license to drug and then sodomize a 13-year-old?  Was his life so awful afterward that he should be excused?  Does Mr. Theodoracopulos feel that living in Europe and making mediocre movies is just punishment?

Mr. Theodoracopulos’s compassion for Polanski and his apparent irrational disdain for Jews and the Irish are troubling.  What do the crimes of one have to do with the crimes of the others?  If Mr. Polanski goes free, does Mr. Theodoracopulos believe that the victims of the INLA are somehow compensated?  Will the IRA’s debts to God, for their sins, be repaid by allowing a rapist of children to go free?  Where did Mr. Theodoracopulos come up with this evil accounting system?

—Michael Shockley

Elk Rapids, MI

Mr. Theodoracopulos Replies:

Michael Shockley does not appear to have understood what I wrote.  I severed relations with Polanski after he committed his crime and wrote some pretty heavy things about him.  But after 30-some odd years, I feel—as does the victim—that enough is enough.

And as far as being a washed-up bon vivant, at least I’ve had and continue to have fun, and I also get to write and say anything that pleases me.  You’re showing envy, Shockley, one of the deadly sins.