Michael Douglas takes courageous stand: self-confessed convicted rapist Polanski really is — gasp! — a criminal!

Per an AP story of yesterday's date published in the Houston Chronicle (among other places):

Michael Douglas says he will not sign a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who is under house arrest in Switzerland in connection with a 33-year-old sex scandal.

Douglas, whose "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is screening at the Cannes Film Festival, told French radio it would be "unfair" for him to sign a petition for "somebody who did break the law."

Other filmmakers at the festival, including French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard and actor-director Mathieu Amalric, have signed the petition, which is posted on a Web site overseen by renowned French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

Polanski was taken into custody in September and is currently under house arrest in Geneva.

The interview aired hours before British actress Charlotte Lewis claimed at a news conference in Los Angeles that she was sexually abused by Polanski in 1982 when she was 16.

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1978 to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. But after a judge said he would renege on the plea bargain, Polanski fled to his native France. He has been a fugitive since then.

In the interview with RTL radio broadcast on Friday, Douglas said Polanski had been given "some bad advice" when the scandal broke.

Oh, what a beacon of moral clarity is Michael Douglas! How brave he is, to stand against the floods of Hollywood and wanna-be Hollywood glitteratti who've flocked to Polanski's defense.

Douglas has displayed — just barely — the minimal human decency not to lionize and make excuses for a confessed, convicted child rapist, one whom we now know to in fact have been a serial child rapist, and one whom we know is both unrepentant and intent on mocking America, its people, and the rule of law. It's terribly sad that Douglas' weak showing is about as much moral integrity as Hollywood is capable of displaying.