Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, held a discussion on Friday’s show about Republicans “trying to interfere” with Obama’s negotiations with Iran via an open letter. Of course, Maher didn’t mention that there are 12 Democrats supporting a tough stance on Iran in addition to the 47 Republican senators that signed the letter.
Maher’s panelists were Arianna Huffington, Tom Rogan of National Review, and former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. But the toast of the studio was leftist actor Sean Penn, who Maher showered with praise for his international charity work. As always, Penn had some rather incendiary comments to say on matters that pertain to countries run by dictatorship or communist rule, charging those 47 Republicans who signed the letter of “criminal mutiny.”
“When a young William Jefferson Clinton was at Oxford and protesting the Vietnam War, and then later ran for the President of the United States, they said that he was a traitor for protesting from foreign shores and the moment that that letter arrived in Tehran, they were protesting from foreign shores. And in fact — I think that where we should not be looking at this, is not in terms of treason, but mutiny and I think perhaps criminal mutiny.”
Minutes later, Huffington jumped in with her own ridiculous statement, saying “The implication of this letter is that if there’s a Republican in the White House next, they’re going to go to war with Iran.” Who knew Huffington could predict the future?
Sean Penn is known for his sympathy and cozying up to dictators and communist leaders from around the world. He is the Jimmy Carter of Hollywood, palling around with America’s enemies. Penn has praised Hugo Chavez, campaigned for him at one time, and even advocated that those journalists who call the former Venezuelan president “dictator” be jailed. (I guess Penn doesn’t believe in freedom of speech.) Heck, apparently Sean Penn had such a great relationship with Chavez, he was able to talk him into urging then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release two American hikers held captive in Iran for two years. Penn also has forged a friendly relationship with Cuban President Raul Castro.
Mr. Penn might want to set his sights on North Korea next. They’ve been in desperate need for an uninformed anti-diplomat ever since Dennis Rodman got kicked out of the country by his buddy Kim Jong-un for drunken and disorderly behavior.
Speaking of the letter to Iran, in 2002 Penn took out an ad in The Washington Post for an open letter to President Bush about the occupation of U.S. forces in Iraq. He pleaded with the president not to go to war in Iraq, “I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror.” Penn also served as a “foreign correspondent” for the San Francisco Chronicle and gave a “personal account” of his November tour in Iraq, stating that occupation by U.S. forces "could ignite a powder keg." Penn also held a news conference in 2002 while in Baghdad, saying, “I feel, both as an American and as a human being, the obligation to accept some level of personal accountability for the policies of my government, both those I support and any that I may not. Simply put, if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis alike will be on our hands.”
Now, on Maher's show, he's still bashing Bush, charging he's un-traveled: "President Bush having been one of the poster children of lack of curiosity, who virtually didn’t use his passport." This was a common liberal spin line before he was president, but it gets silly once he became commander-in-chief.
One could argue that Penn’s aid to countries deemed enemies to the U.S. are worse than his complaints against those who signed an open letter to Iran. If anything, his appearance on Maher’s show proved one thing – that he’s the typical Hollywood hypocrite.
