SocraticGadfly: Sean Penn on the real Hugo Chavez - as part of Tres Amigos

November 26, 2008

Sean Penn on the real Hugo Chavez - as part of Tres Amigos

Penn pulls the mask of the mainstream media, Vice President-elect Joe Biden (and Obama?) and the rest of the turgid "bipartisan foreign policy establishment to take a look at the real Hugo Chavez.

And, no, this wasn't some touchy-feely Hollywood liberal thing.

Accompanying Penn were respected, renowned historian Douglas Brinkley, not a touchy-feely liberal in anybody's book, and the acerbic, skeptical, insightful political and intellectual wild card ... Christopher Hitchens.

It's a much more realistic report than the bullshit PBS put out yesterday on Frontline.

That said, the Raul Castro part wasn't quite so well. He would meet only with Penn, not Brinkley or Hitch, and not even with Penn's Hispanic majordomo riding shotgun. He said that was because he'd informally promised his first official interview as president to somebody else.

That said, did you know Cuba's military and that of the U.S. have held monthly meetings over Guantanamo-related issues for more than a dozen years? And that Raul is willing to open Cuba's offshore oil rights to foreign exploration? Castro also refutes (and has U.S. military conformation) the idea that Cuba sponsors drug smuggling.

That said, Penn asked about, and Castro denied the mass existence of, political prisoners in Cuba.

Read the full story for the real story on both Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez.

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