IT TURNS OUT that the politics of personal destruction does have cultural consequences.

As noted by Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web, the January 29 edition of the Palm Springs Desert Sun featured an op-ed by a distressed 13-year-old named Lindsay Llarena. It seems that on January 8, a police officer who provided security for the local high school pleaded guilty to having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student. The officer, Blaine Trimble, was charged with two counts of consensual digital penetration with a minor–which he plead guilty to–and two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor–which were dismissed as part of his plea bargain. For his trouble, he was sentenced to probation with community service and some counseling. Desert Sun opinion editor Cindy Uken wrote an outraged column about the gentle treatment Trimble had been afforded.