Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
As yet another example of why most celebrities should really just shut the hell up when it comes to politics, I present this quote from Sean Penn:
PENN: The collaborative opportunity in Haiti, when you talk about Hugo Chavez, and some of the other people who are demonized [think Castro], and you know, when some of these countries accuse us of an occupation -- where I believe this was strictly a humanitarian action by the United States military, and an incredible one - I'm a little sympathetic. Because 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.
Oi vey. First of all, Sean, the one accusing the U.S. of attempting a military occupation of Haiti -- which even you think is a crazy accusation -- is your pal Chavez. He's the one making that ridiculous claim, not the media you're wrongly excoriating.
As for throwing journalists in prison for calling Chavez a dictator, are you out of your fucking mind? You're an actor and an outspoken political activist. The absolute last thing you should ever be advocating is giving the government the power to imprison people for making claims they think are false.
Of course, Penn is merely repeating exactly the kind of thing that Chavez himself does in Venezuela. He's put many journalists in jail for criticizing him and shut down dozens of opposition newspapers and radio stations in that country. Sounds a lot like the kind of things a dictator does, doesn't it?
Politics
Comments
So far the only celebrity comment that I've heard that made any sense in terms of realitry was when Amanda Peet stated that people should listen to actual doctors and other medical experts instead of celebrities in response to Jenny McCarthy's anti- vax claims. Yeah, I know, the irony here is awesome.
Posted by: Jeremy Shaffer | March 12, 2010 9:32 AM
Sure Jeff Spicoli was cool when he was young, but this is what happens to you when think you can go on being Spicoli forever. At least that's what my dad thinks and how do you argue with that when Mr. Penn says this shit?
I watched Mr. Penn get interviewed by Bill Maher where he said these things. He had a hard time forming sentences; that struggle to communicate had a bigger impact on me then the content of his message. He may be developing into the most effective anti-drug spokesperson since Ozzy Osbourne.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 12, 2010 9:38 AM
@Jeremy
Ah yes - the very same Jenny McCarthy that just discovered her son does NOT have autism and yet continues to make the crazy claims. Ya know ... for the children.
Posted by: yoshi | March 12, 2010 9:40 AM
I do have to say, I am sympathetic to the idea (though I ultimately reject it) that there should be some kind of Truth in Advertising legislation in regards to politics, just as there is in regards to many commercial products.
If one is not allowed to say "Coca-Cola cures cancer!", then it feels like one should also not be allowed to say "Obama has never produced his birth certificate!" Both are equally ludicrous, equally disgusting lies, and the latter is probably doing more damage.
I'm sure I don't need to point out the problem to commenters of this blog (hell, here I'll probably get flamed even for just saying I am sympathetic to the idea!) but I will anyway: In order to do this, you need a government bureaucracy dedicated to deciding what political speech is true or false -- and at that point, you might as well drop all pretense and just call it the Ministry of Truth. (Not to mention the constitutional issues, of course, but I think there is some latitude there, e.g. I personally do not consider the First Amendment to allow for unrestricted commercial speech, such as "Coca-Cola cures cancer!")
It's still damn tempting, though. How the fuck do Joe Farah and Glenn Beck and their ilk get away with that shit? Every moral impulse I have tells me it ought to be illegal. Alas... I once heard someone refer to Fred Phelps as a "First Amendment beta-tester". Sounds about right...
Posted by: James Sweet | March 12, 2010 9:56 AM
I don't understand your first point, since it's compatible with what he said. His spiel is apologia for just those people, after all.
The second part is pretty funny in macabre sort of way. I wonder how much his position that journalists should be incarcerated from spreading "lies" has to do with a visceral reaction to the tabloid treatment celebrities receive, and how much of it just seems like good policy to him.
Also his quote about Hitler was a real gem, too. When he gets wound up he comes across as the sort that releases a wave of unfiltered stupid. It's kind of entertaining to read, but I would hate to have him over for dinner.
Posted by: mb | March 12, 2010 10:04 AM
Sean Penn is an idiot, of course, but I think he does touch upon an important point. If I am selling a car, and I publicly claim that the car can get 80 miles to the gallon when it clearly only gets 20, I would be civilly (and perhaps criminally) liable. But if I am selling news, and I publicly claim something that I know (or damn well should know) is false, should the seller of such information not be legally liable for at least making a good faith attempt to ensure that it's accurate? Right now (as far as I know), paid news agencies are held under the same standards as unpaid commenters--that is, libel/slander standards, but no standards for what is essentially false advertising and product liability. Is that how it should be?
Posted by: Shygetz | March 12, 2010 10:33 AM
Shygetz -- see my comment at #4 for a similar thought and some reflections on it.
It's much like the problem of idiots voting. Everybody knows it's a problem, but as soon as you designate someone to decide who's an idiot and who isn't, you've provided the perfect mechanism for a government with totalitarian leanings to consolidate its power.
Posted by: James Sweet | March 12, 2010 10:37 AM
This post could have been much shorter to give Penn the response he deserves:
Posted by: highnumber | March 12, 2010 10:50 AM
Ed: Sean Penn's incoherent nonsense isn't even worth noticing. There's nothing separating this rant from all the other pointless noise coming from celebrities every day.
Posted by: Raging Bee | March 12, 2010 10:51 AM
Heh, I got so distracted by the nonsense about prosecuting journalists for "lying" that I didn't even notice what the "lie" was that Penn was alleging.
That's actually sort of an interesting one. I would probably not consider the phrases "Chavez is a dictator" or "Chavez is not a dictator" to be lies... it's very much a matter of definition and opinion.
"Officially," he's not a dictator, so if I were trying to write a straight news article, I would probably avoid calling him that. An opinion piece though might be different...
Posted by: James Sweet | March 12, 2010 10:58 AM
I've never quite understood why so many people flock to celebrities who espouse their political leanings. Regardless of their liberal or conservative stance, nine out of ten of these people don't know jack-shit.
Michael Heath mentioned Bill Maher, I watched that episode as well, watched about a minute or so of Penn's interview, and then hit fast-forward until he was done babbling. Haiti was a terrible tragedy, yes he's trying to help, the rest showed me that Fast Times might not have involved that much "acting." Some of Maher's worst episodes are when he has an all celebrity, all liberal lineup. Even though I tend to agree with them, I can see within just a few minutes of conversation that they don't know what the hell they're talking about. I can go to a Gasthaus at a local university and find half a dozen liberal college students who don't know what the hell they're babbling about, why should I sit through the same nonsense on television?
Penn is an example of an average American who doesn't like something that he sees as unfair/wrong, would like to see it stopped, but doesn't realize that if he gets his way, all voices, especially legitimate voices of dissent could be stopped.
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 12, 2010 11:15 AM
It's been said before "never go full retard".
This appears to be a line that Mr. Penn must cross at every available opportunity.
Posted by: random guy | March 12, 2010 11:40 AM
@James Sweet: Except you wouldn't need a government Ministry of Truth...you would use the same system you use for false advertisement claims, the adversarial legal system. My point is, for-profit media IS commercial speech, and as you said yourself, there is no First Amendment protection for patently false commercial speech--it's either negligence or fraud. Why should for-profit news be any different than other forms of commercial speech?
Posted by: Shygetz | March 12, 2010 11:57 AM
Considering that he fixes elections, fines media channels that question him out of existence, and generally uses the power of his office (which he has changed the constitution, once illegally, to maintain) to browbeat civil society in Venezuela, I feel no qualms calling Mr. Chavez a dictator; he may not be shooting people down in the streets yet, but that's likely only because the poor have remained quiescent to his thieving so far. Winning one legitimate election does not entitle him to a lifetime of playing the caudillo.
Posted by: Julian | March 12, 2010 12:08 PM
It's no wonder people get their news from The Daily Show. At least there, when Stewart quotes someone claiming Obama never showed his birth certificate, he does it sitting next to a blow up of Obama's birth certificate. I think Maddow also calls people out when they are clearly lying, but most shows don't seem to have any fact-checkers on staff.
Posted by: KathyO | March 12, 2010 12:15 PM
Shygetz, I thank you for giving me the mental image of the knock-down drag-out fight between an army of Murdoch lawyers and an army of class-action lawyers fighting each other. Murdoch's money vs. the money of every boob who watched Faux News and got misinformed by it, with Glenn Beck crying his eyes out in the middle of it all.
Posted by: Rob Monkey | March 12, 2010 12:21 PM
Note: The Penn quote (linked in this post)is from a web site advertising itself as “Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias.” (Its other headlines are: "WaPo Giddy Over Gay Marriage" "O'Donnell: Reconciliation 'Never, Never, Never' Been Used Like This Before"...)
Then, what Penn says, is an excuse of Latin American countries' paranoia about U.S. military interventions, and if we remember history, this paranoia is not entirely unfounded.
Penn does say that "this was strictly a humanitarian action by the United States military, and an incredible one...", so he distances himself from this paranoia in this case. Then, mainstream media (MSM) calling someone an evil dictator, even if justified, may sometimes presage an American intervention, after all U.S. media are too happy to spout official propaganda (remember the WMDs?) or 'conservative' shibboleths known to be untrue. And there was a coup attempt in Venezuela, with the U.S. (under Bush) pointedly NOT condemning it as other Latin American countries did (until after it failed).
Of course, I and nobody else on this blog will suggest to put journalists into jail for 'wrong' stories, but indeed some 'quality control' and a shift of American journalism away from 'he said - she said' reporting (while omitting the fact that what one side said was a known lie) would be helpful.
I would credit Mr. Penn with using his celebrity status and wealth to help Haiti and other worthwhile causes, it is his right as a citizen, and given the media in the U.S., there is little else he (or those who want to help causes espoused by a celebrity) can do. (Could you get on TV to push for AID for Haiti, or AIDS relief in Africa?) Of course, there will be mistakes, and celebrities supporting the NRA, but that how it goes.
Posted by: A | March 12, 2010 12:49 PM
Penn's heart might be in the right place on Haiti - it's unclear where his brain is though.
Posted by: bexley | March 12, 2010 1:17 PM
True enough, but to be fair the management of some of the tv stations and newspapers Chavez shut down were directly involved in an almost successful military coup against him. Consider what would happen if say Fox News sponsored hidden meetings and funded a military revolt to take over the white house and other news stations, and strategically broadcast that Obama had willingly given up, Dick Cheney was now in charge, everyone was celebrating the change, and there wasn't anything anybody could do about it.
Posted by: Mclean Edwards | March 12, 2010 1:55 PM
I personally do not consider the First Amendment to allow for unrestricted commercial speech, such as "Coca-Cola cures cancer!"
I drink Coke all the time and I don't have cancer!
Posted by: wtf | March 12, 2010 2:33 PM
Amanda Peet is awesome.
as an aside:
i read on the internet (true!) that the US Geological survey secretly discovered oil in Haiti and they planted a dozen nuclear bombs in undersea trenches and set them off to cause an earthquake and create an excuse to send Big Oil into Haiti disguised as scientologists and they are not going to leave until all the oil is gone and the whole island of Haiti is strip mined for coal and copernicium.
Posted by: rob | March 12, 2010 2:36 PM
Ozzie Guillen has joined the pile-on:
Oh my god seam penn defended ours president hugo chavez thas easy when you no leave in venezuela and have money lol is a joke shame on y ...
I ♥ Ozzie.
Posted by: highnumber | March 12, 2010 2:40 PM
Chávez is not a dictator, sorry. Claims like this:
Considering that he fixes elections
Are complete bullshit. All elections he has won and lost (because he has also lost some and accepted it) have been carefully inspected by international organisms and deemed valid.
You may not like him, you may see an authoritarian side in him, but a dictator he's not, any serious political scientist should know this and the kind of people that read scienceblogs really should be better informed.
Posted by: Manuel | March 12, 2010 6:03 PM
Chavez is a potential dictator. He's an authoritarian with a personality cult and Fidel Castro for a role model. He's not Stalin, but I see analogies to Huey Long.
Posted by: Bill in NC | March 12, 2010 6:19 PM
The Left gives "their" celebrities a platform. The Right elects theirs. I'm gonna side with the Left on this one.
KathyO "...but most shows don't seem to have any fact-checkers on staff."
Real journalism is expensive. Once you cut that it becomes much cheaper to fill the dead space in between commercials.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | March 12, 2010 8:47 PM
"The Left gives "their" celebrities a platform. The Right elects theirs. I'm gonna side with the Left on this one"
What's to side with when it's idiots vs. morons.
Posted by: Bill in NC | March 12, 2010 9:29 PM
Only one of those groups make laws. I'm siding with the group that doesn't.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | March 12, 2010 9:58 PM
Does he want the offending reporters arrested before or after they die screaming of rectal cancer?
Posted by: Dr X | March 12, 2010 10:27 PM
Jeremy Shaffer:
I believe I've heard Bruce Willis say "you shouldn't care what I think, I'm an actor", when asked Issue of the Day type questions.
Posted by: James K | March 12, 2010 11:25 PM
Modusoperandi,
Who is forcing you to choose between the left and the right? Ask them if it's ok for you to sometimes decline to choose or pick your own side. Maybe they'll say yes.
Posted by: highnumber | March 13, 2010 2:18 AM
Damn. I can't believe that no one has mentioned that he won the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award.
He he.
Posted by: Juice | March 13, 2010 3:39 AM
He played a feeble minded dope head on the big screen, it seems he never quit playing that role. This clown's act now is nothing but a deluded ego-inflating venture, from publicly kissing Chavez's rear-end to using the Haiti tragedy as some sort of P-R ricky-rescue-ranger backdrop.
Special message for Sean,,, "Pound sand, Spicoli."
Posted by: Johnathan | March 13, 2010 9:36 AM
Consider what would happen if say Fox News sponsored hidden meetings and funded a military revolt to take over the white house and other news stations, and strategically broadcast that Obama had willingly given up, Dick Cheney was now in charge, everyone was celebrating the change, and there wasn't anything anybody could do about it.
I think the main two things that would happen would be:
1) They would be fined a lot of money, and
2) They would still whine about how they were the real victims in all of this.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | March 14, 2010 7:35 AM