Polanski, Litmus Test For Elite Alienation?

Reading through the reaction to the Polanski arrest on media reaction boards, in France, the UK, USA & Canada, it seems to me that this affair might signal a divorce between the masses and their hitherto cultural elites, as their fiercely different conceptions of ethics and morality are highlighted. Lussier's rightfully getting a kicking at La Presse, I've discovered Tomasky's even more of soulless dolt than I thought, and had other sad realisations, but most of all it's striking, even in France, how contrary, judging from the comment boards, is the reaction of the general public. A good example are the Le monde comment boards which start out with lazy anti-American, pro-Polanski prejudice in the first reactions, only to eventually be dominated by cold rebuttals about the nature of justice. I suspect that ordinary readers, shocked by the tone of the articles and the initial comments, are incited to re-establish some equilibrium. I'd be curious to know how many of the later anti-Polanski comments are by first-time or rare commenters. I suspect quite a few people who can't be bothered to comment normally find themselves pushed to do so by the sophism of the pro-Polanski coverage and initial comments (Grayling's got a cold-headed appraisal in the Times). The fierceness of popular reaction to cultural elites' sympathy for Polanski represents a rare litmus test for the alienation of these elites from the population on which they depend. The last event which swung so quickly was the Diana affair in the UK - I'd say the cultural elites are playing the role of the Royal Family in this one. They think the world is and works one way. They're about to discover an awful lot of people on whom they depend feel very differently, I suspect (NB. I'm not speaking of the constitutional niceties of the Diana affair, where I think the Crown was right, nor of the general hysteria of the public at the time, which was wrong, but rather of a rare public division in the body politic, and of which the Crown was seemingly oblivious, until it was almost too late).