Dept. of Really Bad Analogies.

Rick Moran takes an, um, interesting view of the Polanski case:

As an historical aside, a similar state of mind infected America when John Brown went to the gallows in 1857 to die for his crimes. Here, northerners condemned his actions but sympathized with his cause. That reaction drew the same kind of astonishment from southerners that we feel today at the reaction on the left to Polanski's arrest. In fact, it hurried the day when civil war became probable as the south felt that northerners didn't care if slaves murdered their masters in their beds as long as it was done in the just cause of getting rid of the institution. They didn't understand the north's moral confusion and many felt that a great chasm had opened up between the two sides.

I've got nothing to add. This, like great art, speaks for itself.