HE SHOULD STICK TO READING OTHER PEOPLE'S WORDS – AT 6:36 P.M. ET:  Actor Sean Penn reminds us of everything we find revolting in today's Hollywood.  Friends might advise him to shut up.  From Fox:

First Amendment be damned . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.

Penn, appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

"Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it" said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. "And this is mainstream media, who should -- truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

In Sean Penn's ideal society, a lot of actors would also probably find themselves in jail.

It was just the beginning of a busy weekend for Penn. When asked on CBS' "Sunday Morning" about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in Haiti, he said:

"Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I'm not going to spend a lot of energy on it."

Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News' senior judicial analyst, said the same constitutional protection that applies to journalists also applies to Penn, who can say pretty much anything he wants in the "political arena" -- aside from an immediate incitement of violence.

COMMENT:  Penn isn't the first actor to make a fool of himself by fronting for a thug.  Stalin had his Tinseltown groupies as well.  What's annoying is that Penn gets so much air time, whereas the opponents of Chavez's regime of fear get very little chance on American TV or in the American press to make their case.

March 8, 2010