Roman Polanski’s victim, now 48-year-old Samantha Geimer, tells the Los Angeles Times she wants the case to end.

“I hope that the D.A.’s office will now have this case dismissed and finally put the matter to rest once and for all,” she said in an e-mail.

She has said the same thing to the New York Daily News:

“I have no hard feelings,” she said, adding that she just wanted to move on. “I know that he regrets it.”

“I’m happy that it’s over,” her mother tells the paper.

The men involved, who let the matter go for decades, continue to huff and puff.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who led the effort to bring Polanski back to the U.S., said he was dumbfounded by the decision. “Mr. Polanski is still convicted of serious child sex charges,” Cooley said. “The Swiss could not have found a smaller hook on which to hang their hat.”

Cooley, a Republican running for California attorney general, said he would again seek extradition if Polanski is arrested in any other country.

This is clearly not an issue where people are going to resolve their differences; it’s probably the most divisive thing that I’ve ever posted about on this blog. To me, that alone suggests the futility of spending taxpayers’ dollars on what has become a crusade, driven not by reason or results but by emotion.

It appears that we are left with an awkward detente: Polanski will live out his life in Europe, never returning to the country he most loved and with a permanent stain on his reputation and legacy. His victim will now be able to return to her previously normal adult life. (She’s a mom with three kids.)

This isn’t what people on both extremes would want.

(Here’s a quote from the LA Times that will drive some people nuts: “The great Franco-Polish director will from now on be able to freely meet with his family and dedicate himself to the pursuit of his artistic activities,” said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, adding that he was “delighted” by the decision.)

But it gives Polanski’s defenders something, and it gives his critics something. Considering the circumstances and context of the matter, that sounds like justice to me.