So, Sean Penn is in Ukraine...

Note to readers: Here’s some more red meat for those who have come here primarily for my political commentary. Well, maybe not “red” meat, because this piece goes back to 2013! But I hope it’ll be worth reading, serve as a reminder of recent history, and maybe even provide a chuckle.

When I heard on the news yesterday that Sean Penn was in Ukraine making a film (in what some have characterized as “celebrity stunt journalism”), I remembered having mentioned Penn in my prior writings, went into my own archives, and found this, which is more about Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez than about Sean Penn, but here it is nevertheless.

Giving Chavez Credit Where Credit is Due   (Originally published by American Thinker 3-19-2013)

Within a few days after the announcement of Hugo Chavez having achieved room temperature, I ran into a friend who was born in Venezuela and had spent his early childhood there before coming to the U.S. He still has family and friends in Venezuela and has traveled there occasionally, even during Chavez’s presidency. To say that my friend was not a big fan of Hugo Chavez would be a colossal understatement.

So, when I ran into my friend I sarcastically inquired, “Estoy seguro que estas completamente destrozado por la muerte de Hugo Chavez, ¿No ?” – “I’m sure you’re completely shattered by the death of Hugo Chavez, Right?”

My friend looked at me with a perfectly straight face and told me that, actually, he was seriously reconsidering his feelings about Chavez. He then explained:

“Despite all his faults, all his nuttiness and all the damage he did to Venezuela, you still have to consider that this was a man who called Barack Obama a clown! That’s something that neither McCain nor Romney had the huevos to do. Ya gotta give him some credit for that!”

I had almost forgotten that episode. There had been far more media coverage of Chavez speaking to the UN General Assembly in 2006 and calling George W. Bush The Devil:

But, sure enough, Chavez had called Obama “a clown” after Obama had criticized Chavez’s ties to Iran and Cuba. Chavez claimed that Obama’s criticism was a ploy to garner votes.

I quipped to my friend that, despite having been dissed by his Venezuelan buddy, Barack Obama was probably now sitting shiva for Chavez, who had now joined in the afterlife such other members of Obama’s pantheon of heroes and role models as Stalin, Pol Pot, Frank Marshall Davis, Mussolini and Dr. Goebbels. I added that Obama didn’t have too many heroes and role models left alive, except of course for Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe (a big proponent of “wealth redistribution” who has presided over a “fundamental re-structuring” of Zimbabwe).

[You may wish to also check out my 2013 American Thinker piece about Zimbabwe, here.]

My friend then wondered aloud how Leftists in general, and especially Hollywood Libs like Sean Penn, a fawning bootlicker of both Chavez and Obama who never met a Leftist autocrat he didn’t like, would reconcile the dichotomy of two of his own heroes at odds with each other. But then we agreed that Sean Penn probably couldn’t even spell “dichotomy,” let alone grasp the concept.

As Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” My friend’s premise is correct: Ya gotta give Chavez credit for knowing a clown when he saw one, and for calling a clown a clown. ‘Trouble is, though some may call him Obozo, this clown isn’t the kind who makes us laugh.