Sean Penn Says Bush, Cheney, Rice and Tenet ‘Should be in [Bleeping] Jail’

It was guaranteed to be an evening filled with anti-Bush, anti-conservative vitriol on HBO’s “Real Time” Friday with Sean Penn on the roster.

After all, just five weeks ago, Penn told an antiwar gathering in Oakland, California, that George W. Bush has "become our country’s and our Constitution’s most devastating enemy.”

Surprisingly, it was a mostly civil discussion for about half of the panel segment as former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tennessee) added a much-needed level of sanity and civility between nonsensical rants by Penn, the normal blather out of Maher, and occasional comedic jabs by Garry Shandling.

However, with George Tenet having been on CBS’ “60 Minutes” the previous Sunday pointing fingers at the Bush administration while trying to absolve himself, it was a metaphysical certitude Penn was going to go after the White House with foam oozing from his mouth along with the vulgarity (video available here courtesy Ms Underestimated):

Recently, when President Ford died, there was a lot of revisionist discussion about his pardoning of Richard Nixon. And in most cases, both Democrats and Republicans got on talk shows and said that as it turned out, it turned to be, it was a great unifier for the country. At the time, the country was very divided, chaos.

And, I think it’s really quite the opposite. That when you have a precedent set like that, and you have somebody, George Tenet, acknowledging in his book, that he knew that the Administration was deceiving the American people into a situation that is murdering young men and women from this country and others, that George Tenet and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and George Bush et al should be in fucking jail.

Thunderous applause, with hoots, hollers, and screams of “Yeah” emanated from the crowd for almost twenty seconds.

I kid you not.

A few moments later, Penn continued:

George Tenet, you know, we talk about whistleblower protections. These kinds of things. When, you know, the American people are under the misconception that the oath is sworn to the President of the United States. It’s to the Constitution of the United States. And they are in violation of the Constitution.

Sadly, like most of his ilk, Penn likely has never read the Constitution, let alone understood its contents. After all, his signature role of Jeff Spicoli -- the one that launched his career in the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" -- almost flunked tenth grade history.

Is this art imitating life, or vice versa?