Ah, you knew the defenders of rape would come out from under their trenchcoats for this one. Author Bernard-Henri Levy, Roman Polanski's chief apologist — for sure. But Hollywood dough boy and conservative pundit Ben Stein?

What's bizarre about Stein's reaction to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case in New York this week is that he thinks the International Monetary Fund chief deserves special treatment for his years of public service and that the reported victim, a maid from the West African nation of Guinea, deserves some suspicion because of her trade.

Ah, how truly conservative of you Ben, to believe that justice belongs only to the proverbial landowners. Here's what he blogged:

Did he [Strauss-Kahn] really have to be put in Riker's Island? Couldn't he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly.

… I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail?

… this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that's what it's all about. A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He's got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Wow, Ben, really? Would a poorer man of color in a $50 hotel room and a history of “public service” as a city janitor have received such an impassioned defense?

The woman says she had no idea who Strauss-Kahn was, by the way.

Stein also argues that Strauss-Kahn, arrested Saturday attempting to head back to France after the woman alleged he forced her to go down on him at New York's Sofitel, has no record of even being rude to women (and therefore shouldn't be put under such intense suspicion).

And, in one said twist of logic, Stein wonders how this feat of allegedly forced fellatio could have even happened, physiologically:

How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

Oh Ben. You're a smart guy, but you should stick to game shows and TV commercials, if anyone in Hollywood will ever hire you again.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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