It seems Hugo Chavez has praised actor Sean Penn for his anti-war effort.
I dunno. Do you really want an endorsement from a tyrannical dictator who's nationalizing companies, silencing opponents, and ruling by decree?
Chavez said Penn traveled to Venezuela this week wanting to learn more about the situation in the country and walked around some of Caracas' poor barrios on his own.
"Welcome to Venezuela, Mr. Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths," Chavez said Wednesday in a televised speech. "He's one of the greatest opponents of the Iraq invasion."
Chavez read aloud from a recent open letter by Penn to President Bush in which the actor condemned the Iraq war and called for Bush to be impeached, saying the president along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are "villainously and criminally obscene people."
The socialist president, who shares those views, said he and Penn talked by phone — "with my bad English but we understood each other more or less."
Many people on the Left hate when conservatives bring up the "useful idiot" label for people like Penn or Cindy Sheehan or Cameron Diaz or Jane Fonda. But it's hard not to look at these people and wonder seriously who they want to be friends with. Do they honestly think the Hugo Chavezes of this world believe in freedom of speech or the right to protest as it is practiced in the U.S.?
For Chavez (or Castro, or Hu Jintao or whoever), such photo ops with American celebrities are positive press. These events allow these dictators to manipulate the gullible press into spinning stories showing these countries in the best light possible.
But I don't really blame the press so much here. I do blame the celebrities involved. If Sean Penn really has Chavez's ear, why doesn't he press him on his oppression of opposition groups or controlling the media in Venezuela?
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