. . . that Polanski deserves whatever's coming to him (as the top poster does, also, though he/she has an odd way of noting such), there's one problem with your comparison: Steven Spielberg, talented though he is, is no genius.

Other than that, there wasn't anything calling out too shrilly for rebuttal. There's a thought or two I'd like to bandy about, though . . .

While a 13-year-old is considerably younger than anyone I'd consider viable, she's not exactly a "little girl." Moreover, given that there was little evidence that Polanski committed such an act prior to the incident in question, there isn't necessarily reason to believe that he was/is in any "habit" of raping "little" girls.

None of this mitigates the fact that, according to all evidence, he DID rape the girl in question--regardless of her age, and regardless of anyone's particular take on the notion of age-of-consent, she said "no," even after being plied with alcohol and nigh-immobilized with qualuudes. And for that, the piper still must be paid.

The world is full of great films created by directors who [probably] were not in the habit of raping little girls. This same world would have been just as enlightened and just as entertained inside the movie houses had Polanski never been born.

Maybe, maybe not; I doubt that anyone who'd even suggest that Spielberg qualifies as a genius is qualified to say. Regardless, even if his best films are indispensable (and I submit that they are--cinema without Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, or Repulsion strikes me as a sad, sorry place; even interesting failures like Pirates or Bitter Moon are more edifying than most of the foregone successes of a Zemeckis or a Spielberg, let alone a Schumacher, Rattner, or Bay), that does NOT mitigate the gravity of the crime at hand.