Sean Penn Exposed: Useful Idiot

Although Sean Penn has the reputation of being a fine actor, I’ve never shared that opinion and regard his acting as overrated. His early performance in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” as stoner Jeff Spicoli is regarded fondly by those with sophomoric comedic taste but my taste prefers more subtlety. Penn absolutely destroyed the film “The Interpreter” with his hound dog expression throughout the film and “I Am Sam” remains the thespian lesson in what to avoid when portraying the mentally challenged.

I used to think that Penn’s liberal statements came from a genuine concern for the poor and downtrodden and did not laugh at that pathetic picture of Penn in that leaky rowboat in New Orleans after the Katrina devastation. I also did not join the skeptics who questioned his Haitian relief efforts. I figured him to be naïve but with his recent statement that “Hugo Chavez” is not a dictator, the truth is finally clear. Sean Penn is an idiot-a useful one-but an idiot nonetheless.

I’ve never been to Venezuela but I know many transplanted immigrants from that country who relate tales of horror since that “dictator” took over. What kind of spell has Chavez spun to cloud the Hollywood fool’s mind to the damage this man has wrought on his country?

A few years ago I interviewed native Venezuelan Thor Halvorssen, the

founder of Moving Picture Institute, the TriBe-Ca-based film company that

produces documentaries about the fight against despotic tyrannies and about political hypocrisy, trade union corruption, and political correctness.

Mr. Halvorssen is the president and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation, which has Vaclav Havel as Chairman and the perfect person to ask about Sean Penn’s ludicrous defense of Hugo Chavez. Currently he is on a human rights mission but he graciously responded to my request for his comments:

“When Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the European Parliament, Inter-American Commission and Court for Human Rights, the Committee to Protect Journalists and dozens of other governmental and civil society groups from across the political spectrum demonstrate through reports, case studies, and a mountain of evidence that Hugo Chavez persecutes journalists, imprisons opponents, manipulates elections, finances and arms death squads in Colombia, shuts down independent media, bankrupts independent small business, confiscates property, provides moral and technological support to dozens of despots around the world–well, you have a consensus of many smart, well-informed people that Chavez is bad news. Sean Penn is either exceptionally ignorant or deliberately malicious. Given that he has travelled to Venezuela and, unlike Venezuelans whose media is restricted, is able to obtain as much information as he wants, it is baffling for him to be on the side of tyranny and human rights violations. I once confronted him at Elton John’s Oscar party about Venezuela and he literally walked away when I started naming Venezuela’s political prisoners. At least the support that Chavez has received from Danny Glover has a clear venal justification: his production company received tens of millions in cash from the Venezuelan government. But Sean Penn’s obsession with Chavez is inexplicable. I have been in touch with his publicist and his manager and have extended several invitations for him to travel and see the Venezuela that is experienced by the majority of people there–those who resist and oppose the destruction of Venezuela’s democracy. I am still hopeful that he will do the right thing. The invitation still stands.”

Sean Penn will never accept Halvorssen’s invitation because, I conclude, he is an idiot.