Arcadia Foundation

Days before Sean Penn graced millions of television viewers with a brief appearance at the Academy Awards gala, he was seen putting on a performance of his own.

Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

And the award for best supporting actor of an erratic authoritative regime goes to….

Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, said the same constitutional protection that applies to journalists also applies to Penn, who can say pretty much anything he wants in the “political arena” — aside from an immediate incitement of violence.

“What he is saying is protected, as wacky and weird as it is,” Napolitano told FoxNews.com. “But the substance of what he’s saying would be absolutely contrary to the First Amendment, which fully protects all political opinions. So if a journalist says Dick Cheney should go to jail, the journalist is privileged to say that.”

“Mr. Penn is calling for a communist-like regime in which journalists who criticize the government are sent to jail because of that criticism,” Napolitano added. “That is utterly un-American and hasn’t happened here since the Civil War.”

Shockingly, Penn’s own references are invalid. Although recently we have seen both the media and human rights activists protesting the atrocities Chavez has overseen, according to a study by the Business and Media Institute, news coverage pertaining to Chavez between 1998 to 2006 found the Venezuelan president’s human rights record was mentioned in only 10 percent of stories, and he was described as a leftist in only 12 percent of stories.

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