Anti-Semitism Got Polanski

Gore Vidal isn't afraid to say what he really thinks about the Roman Polanski fiasco. "I really don’t give a f---. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?" he tells the Atlantic in a wide-ranging interview, adding that the real story is getting twisted, and that "anti-Semitism got poor Polanski."

"The media can’t get anything straight," Vidal continues. "Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press—lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko—that’s what people were calling him—well, the story is totally different now from what it was then." (More Gore Vidal stories.)