Sean Penn hitting bottom

Geee -- first it was rectal cancer, now it's jail time. From The Blogmocracy:

Sean Penn Suggests Prison Time for Journalists Who Call Hugo Chavez a Dictator
Just when you think that Sean �Spicoli� Penn (a terrific actor by the way) cannot fall in your estimation any lower � you get this. There is little doubt in my mind that he is a Red and that in his case, the apple did not fall far from the tree as his father Leo Penn was Red also:

by Tim Graham
At the end of a discussion of Haiti on HBO�s Real Time with Bill Maher, actor Sean Penn went on a rant in defense of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, suggesting prison time for American journalists: �every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should � truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.�

This is a little strange, since a study by our Business and Media Institute of Chavez coverage from 1998 to 2006 found Chavez�s much-criticized human rights record was mentioned in only ten percent of stories, and he was described as a leftist in only 12 percent of stories. Maher shifted to Chavez and the end of the Haiti interview, asking Penn to make a case for his man Chavez:

MAHER: His image in the media is just a buffoon. You have been there. You know him. You�ve talked to him. That�s all I really know about Hugo Chavez, is what I read in the media. A dictator, took over a lot of the branches of government, wants to be president for life. What do you know that I don�t know, that I should not have such a harsh feeling about this guy?

PENN: I think that if you�re more happy with 20 percent of a population having the access to dreams, access to the feeling they have an identity and a voice. If it�s okay with the 20 percent, versus the 80 percent he gave it to, then you can criticize Hugo Chavez. You know, there are a lot of complicated issues that comes simply out of perspective. We in the United States have a difficult time putting ourselves in the shoes of what has been the history of Venezuela, the history of Latin America, and many other places.We�re very monocultural. And then we are hypnotized by the media. For example, Hugo Chavez. Who do you know here who�s gone through fourteen of the most transparent elections on the globe, and has been elected democratically, as Hugo Chavez?

One comment at the link was wonderful:

It must really gall him that Spicoli will be his defining act.
He keeps trying to get beyond it with his agitation, trying to prove he is smarter than that role.... But he really isn't.

Talk about being a useful idiot. Stick to the silver screen buddy-boy...