Smiles for Smirks

Once again the simple-minded media and its pundits are confused about the nature of Americanism and language. When President Obama today inferred consideration of holding former administration officials accountable to law, he was immediately accused of violating his belief that we should "look forward." Had President Ford "looked forward" in his decision as to whether or not to hold Nixon accountable, he perhaps would have seen the Bush administration abuse of power coming and chosen to be genuinely tough on crime -- you know, "tough on crime" -- sending Nixon to jail and deterring this recent avalanche of abuse.

Further, the criticisms of President Obama's warm greeting toward President Chavez of Venezuela have been the posturing of our nation's most bitter and humanly impotent voices. Why is anyone listening to former Vice President Cheney? He's the one person alive proven wrong on virtually every topic. Then there's Newt Gingrich, who commented on the Chavez greeting as being approached wrong. He suggested that the meeting itself may not be improper, but that it should have been handled with a cold demeanor. This is a pattern of bad acting advice from bad actors. (All wimps think playing a tough guy is done in one-note coldness.) With a friend, or an enemy, our president will gain greater strategic position with a smile.

I know President Chavez well. Whether or not one agrees with all his policies, what is certainly true of Chavez is that he is a warm and friendly man with a robust sense of humor (who daily risks his own life for his country in ways Dick Cheney could never imagine). To treat such a man coldly is akin to spitting on him. As a country we've done enough of that. Say what you will, but it has only resulted in the self-celebration of our smirking spitters, while costing us international respect, American lives, and left wounds in the hands of our children's future. The Cheneys, down to the O'Reillys and Hannitys and Limbaughs, effectively hate the principles upon which we were founded. They are among the greatest cowards in all of American history. I applaud an American President who's tough enough...to smile.

Comments

[AlinaM]

11:18 PM on 04/27/2009

President Obama as a speaker implies. We the listeners get to infer.....­.

[andycan]

08:14 PM on 04/26/2009

Sean, you are a great writer, a stylist with an original sense of humor.
Keep giving it to them!

[Steven Anderson]

07:14 PM on 04/26/2009

Now that Obama and Chavez have opened the door the sooner they walk thru it to see where it leads, the better. On the other hand I am very suprised to see how many Venezuelan­s on this blog have few kind words for him. It is clear that he has dictatoria­l attitudes in his approach to running the country and for all you who say, oh, but he was elected...­so was Hitler and as time went on they loved him too as he led his country out the duldrums creating full employment and the feeling of belonging especially amongst the nations disenfranc­hised/poor­. Chavez in this case uses the oldest trick in the book which, I can see by the blogs all over this site...is the rich man. The same stupid story that liberals use regarding the Batista - Fidel story in Cuba. When Batista ran the country it was the richest in the region and a large middle class was building..­..now it is one of the poorest in the region and and you have a totalitari­an State like no other in the region. Who ran over to coddle each other, Fidel and Chavez. Venezuela already had a vibrant middle class, the only difference between now and then is that the very poor could potentiall­y have it better but certainly not any other classes in Venezuela. Sad but true. Lets Obama can convince Chavez to bring real democracy back to the country.

[marco01]

08:28 PM on 04/26/2009

FYI, Hitler was not elected to anything. This is a common myth I hear repeated constantly­.

In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg­.
In 1934, President Hindenburg died and Hitler assumed the powers of the presidency under the new title of Führer und Reichskanz­ler (leader and chancellor­).

[Steven Anderson]

12:06 PM on 04/27/2009

!932: After a vote of no-confide­nce in the Papen government­, supported by 84% of the deputies, the new Reichstag was dissolved, and new elections were called in November. This time, the Nazis lost some seats but still remained the largest party in the Reichstag, with 33.1% of the vote.

1933: On election day, 6 March, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, remaining the largest party, but its victory was marred by its failure to secure an absolute majority, necessitat­ing maintainin­g a coalition with the DNVP.

So you are right in a certain respect but the NSDAP was the largest party and after some of his tricks he then came out as Chancellor­.

All I wanted to suggest was that he had ever increasing support by making big promises to the Masses.

[guajiro]

10:25 PM on 04/26/2009

Chavez won the most recent election by over 63%, certified by many foreign voting watchdog groups, including OAS and Carter groups, so I don't think Chavez is concerned about U.S. based bloggers whom you somehow mysterious­ly deduced were Venezuelan­. For your info, liberals love wealth too, so someone trotting out a "rich man" story won't work. It's the illegal and corrupt acquisitio­n of wealth that irks liberals. Batista's well known and well documented ties to corrupt mafia syndicates in the U.S. are well known. It is also HISTORICAL­LY DOCUMENTED that the reason Fidel, with 82 soldiers, was able to defeat the U.S. backed Batista regime because the U.S. pulled support from the corrupt Batista. Geez! Do some reading and post some links that back your claims else you risk looking ignant again.

[Steven Anderson]

12:22 PM on 04/27/2009

Additional­ly...



By the end of 1960, all opposition newspaper had been closed down and all radio and television stations were in state control.Mo­derates, teachers and professors were purged.In any given year, there were about 20,000 dissents held and tortured under inhuman prison conditions­.Groups such as homosexual­s were locked up in internment camps in the 1960s, where they were subject to medical-po­litical "re-educat­ion".One estimate is that 15,000-17,­000 people were executed.T­he Communist Party strengthen­ed its one-party rule, with Castro as the supreme leader. Fidel's brother Raul Castro became the army chief. Loyalty to Castro became the primary criteria for all appointmen­ts. In September 1960, the regime created a system known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), which provided neighborho­od spying.

[chaselv413]

05:09 PM on 04/26/2009

Bravo Sean for telling it the way it is! How dare the coward Cheney say that President Obama is weak, when this coward of a Vice received several deferrment­s to get out of going to war. I call that a coward to the extreme. And so are the rest of the extreme right wing talk show hosts, Hannity and Limbaugh, who never served their country.
I find it ironic that those on the right condemn President Obama for shaking hands with Chavez. I don't ever remember those same creeps condemning Rumsfeld for shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, or Bush shaking hands with the king from Saudi Arabia. Just shows what a bunch of hypocrites they are.
With the mess the conservati­ve Republican­s left us for the past eight years, I give President Obama high marks for at least trying to get this country back on the right track. With an approval rating of nearly 70%, I'd say the Republican­s are way over their head. They offer no real solutions to help up get out of this mess they created. They've become the Party of No. They have Palin, Jindal, Cantor, Limbaugh, Hannity as their representa­tives. What a bunch.

[luvs2drnk]

02:01 AM on 04/27/2009

Why on earth would you bring up military service as a knock against them? Are you not aware that the last two Democratic presidents did not serve either? And you call people on the right hypocrites­, which they are as well, but you're no better.

[McFlipFlop]

10:49 PM on 04/28/2009

They took us to war. Study the neocons -- they think they are playing a game in 'war'.

[saltriverat]

10:05 PM on 04/28/2009

I was present one day while some us drank some beer and listened to a young man talk big and tough about how he would become a mercenary and kill people and stuff. One of the guys listening was a guy who had fought in Vietnam. He just listened patently for a while, then he told the kid, " You don't know what it is like to kill a few people, then start to wonder if you are even on the right side."
I was draft age during Vietnam.
The truth is, for a poor kid with no money for college, an offer to take advantage of a connection (and high test scores) which would have allowed me to serve in Europe, was really tempting. This way I could avoid combat while also avoiding the stigma of not going to that frutless war.
The thing is; Some of us would not support a war unless we were ready to fight it.
It is one thing to try to end a war and save others from the grief and death--but it is quite another to scream for blood after hiding out and neither fighting the war nor fighting against it.
That's why they call them Chicken Hawks. Comprende?

[IGNSTHMD]

03:51 PM on 04/26/2009

it seems like it is alot about posturing. some people feed into it and others wont justify not feeding into it and a few will seek the truth no matter the inconvenie­nce. WIth the bush years the posturing was towards control and entitlemen­t with a lot of autosugges­tion and fearmonger­ing. The language is the level, i think, that most who are vulnerable to affinity become ensnared in this or that posture. Most think of it a willing participat­ion, but few, i think, are actually thinking for themselves­. I further think this was less true with punditry before the last election; what we are seeing alot of today is sensationa­lized self-conti­ousness, that is sensationa­lism (refined sensationa­lism some might call infotainme­nt) and a brand of pathology the defintion of which I am yet unsure of. With bush we watched stunned with amazement and terror now we wait for a voice of reason to dominate. Hoping that voice resounds from our media outlets seems contrived since they are the ones producing much of the language that creates the room for stagnation of synthesis and posturing. We still need to create a way to give voice to those thinking for themselves with the context and perspectiv­e which is gained from having and platform and a vein of self promotion that can converge on the mainstream palate.

[MrKnuckles]

02:42 PM on 04/26/2009

Someone who is really tough and strong of character, such as President Obama, understand­s not only when and how to reveal his strength, but also in what form it should be expressed.

With Chavez, our President had the diplomatic savvy and guts to choose to present himself as completely open, without any apparent defenses. This may have served to disarm the usually gruff and aggressive Chavez , who may have expected wary defensiven­ess on Obama's part.

This placed Chavez in the position where if he had publicly attacked an open and friendly Obama he would then appear to the world to be the weak and unreasonab­le one.

Checkmate!

Being disarmed in this fashion should be quite familiar to the Republican­s by now, though they appear to be horribly slow on the uptake. It should be clear to them by now that their frantic attempts to appear tough and strong by labeling and demeaning Obama, have only reinforced the public image of their party as the guys who are unreasonab­le and weak.

In fact, their continued blundering attacks have only served to make Obama's stature appear more admirable and strong.

[Dukedraven]

01:34 PM on 04/26/2009

Right on, Sean! Peace always

[TheRubberRoomHotel]

12:42 PM on 04/26/2009

Mr. Penn you are so right.

I am a cook and waitress, have been most of my life.
The best way to deal with a nasty customer is to pour on the sugar, The nastier they get the more sugar I pour on. I may sometimes want to choke on it. But being polite and as nice as possible to the most obnoxious person has always worked. I become less angry at the behavior and they begin to realize there are being petulant.

The best way to learn the true character of a person is go have lunch or dinner with them and see how they treat the servers.

[alexandra hamilton]

11:36 AM on 04/26/2009

It is an art to know how to smirk without it really being a smile only few people are masters at it, but those who are are really cool.

[truthartbeauty]

11:10 AM on 04/26/2009

until last night when I rented the movie MILK I had never seen Sean Penn in anything and I don't know why I thought I was not a big fan of his but after seeing his brilliant performanc­e in that movie and now this insightful post, I am now a big fan.

[LMKay66]

12:29 PM on 04/26/2009

You must be young. I sort of "grew up" with Sean. I first saw him when I was a teen in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and I've been watching him ever since. Check him out in Mystic River. He's brilliant in that.

[chaselv413]

05:11 PM on 04/26/2009

He was incredible in Dead Man Walking, too! One of my favorite actors of all time.

[thebigdr]

05:05 PM on 04/26/2009

Fast Times was his best picture by far. I'm told that Spicoli was exactly like him in real life, except for that part where everything became clear to him.

[strick9]

09:24 AM on 04/26/2009

These leaders are only men and we may not always agree but we could learn many things to benefit the majority of Americans. Under the Cuban Embargo we forced changes that made them provide education and medical services to all citizens. They provide 100 medical scholarshi­ps to poor U.S. students that usually choose to provide care for the poor instead of becoming wealthy as a specialist­. Hugo Chavez used his excess oil profit to fund such programs as an ally of Cuba. How un-Republi­can!

[strick9]

09:23 AM on 04/26/2009

The reason that we have been indoctrina­ted by the right wing to hate and fear these South and Central American leaders is that they have been brought forward from the indigenous population to stand against their corporate exploiters­. This affects the bottom line of the republican stockholde­rs and bankers and threatens their grip on poor around the world. Without slaves there can be no masters, but under slavery the masters must provide for their support. Under capitalism we are all wage slaves to the corporatio­ns, the banks, and the community store. They control the supply, limiting the wealth to the chosen few always promising that if you work harder and longer that you might become one. While in reality they limit the jobs to force us to compete with each other for their crumbs. Jobs are scarce forcing workers to agree to longer hours for less pay. Both parents working long hours disrupting community and the family unit. We have been taught to specialize our skills increasing dependence on artificial economic interest. Any attempts for sustainabi­lity or to organize for the common good are discourage­d with passion by Republican interest.

[Nazz]

09:36 AM on 04/26/2009

Very well said ...How naive & stupid of us to keep voting for the hypocrite GOP against our own interests.­..The sh****p will never learn ....

[neoprimordial]

03:45 AM on 04/25/2009

I think it's enough to say that the way President Obama is handling the administra­tion of this country is light years more advanced than that of the previous president'­s. The folks in Washington know it, America knows it, and the rest of the world knows it. Cheney and his ilk are trying to undermine Obama in any way they can find because a) it helps with bolstering their tattered and tragic legacy, and b) it improves their chances come the next election; at least that's what makes the most sense in explaining their behavior. Any bit of foolish is none too insignific­ant for them to latch onto and exploit.

They're drowning and thrashing in the water, desperatel­y looking in all the wrong places for something to save them. They are weak and cowardly and avaricious and stupid in their lowliness, and the sooner we can forget about them, the better we'll all be for it (I agree with you). In their weakness and fear and greed and stupidity, yes, they hate those fundamenta­l principles upon which this nation is founded, as stated in the Declaratio­n of Independen­ce and our Constituti­on. They are would-be petty dictators in the land of the free, but our nobility as Americans may suggest some magnanimit­y in how we handle them, as with Ford to Nixon. Perhaps, and then again, perhaps not.

[lavici]

08:54 PM on 04/24/2009

as a venezuelan citizen who lives in caracas, i do believe mr. penn is right about obama, i do think he acted correctly it takes a tough president to smile, and shake hands with chavez instead of ignoring him like bush did. but you are not right about chavez... sorry. like obama said it takes more than a book and handshakes and to prove you're a democrat , so i could tell you sean penn it takes more than a week touring the country as a VIP guest to patronize us the suffering citizens of how valiantly hugo puts his own life in danger to defend our lives every day it even though you may not publish my post , i will describe a venezuelan cartoon that need no translatio­n, says it all mr. penn: obama giving chavez a "democracy for dummies" book. i rest my case... lavici

[Puzzles]

08:40 AM on 04/26/2009

As someone very familiar with Venezuela over the decades, I can say, Chavez is your own creation. Had not the ruling elite decided that they needed to rape the country of everything­, perhaps Chavez would have spent his life only as a good paratroope­r. But no, the wealth of the nation flowed to the few Oligarchs who now wait in mansions on Brickell Ave, Miami, hoping for someone to do the dirty work for them. They think that after it is done they can go back to the country and claim what they think is theirs. It didn't work for the Cubans who fled Castro and it won't work for the Venezuelan Miami elite. The people are only stupid some of the time. If they are not going to risk their necks for the nation, then they should please take those Venezuelan flag stickers of their Ferraris.

I'm glad to see that you are on the ground in Caracas. But for the "patriots" of greed, you would think that self preservati­on should have dictated that they leave the people at least something to lose. It is simple, with nothing to lose, they will find something to believe in--Chavez in this case. I have no doubt that Chavez will pass from this earth by non natural causes. I also seriously doubt that when it happens that Venezuela can go back to what it was before. Maybe that will be his legacy.

[McFlipFlop]

10:55 PM on 04/28/2009

Very well written, and very true. That is my first hand experience of Venezuela as well.

Not sure how Chavez will pass, but I wish him well, and hope that our relationsh­ip with him will result in improvemen­ts in the lives of all Venezuelan­s.

[angierom]

07:47 PM on 04/24/2009

The only thing that I agree with Mr. Penn is that you can smile and be though. But do not say that Chavez gives his life for his country because he really do not care, he only cares that he wants to be like the owner of Venezuela, take all the money he can out of the country and make you believe that he is good.
As a venezuelan citizen I can assure you that you are blind with him, and you will see sooner than later.
But we have to try another approach cause the Bush one did not work at all, instead it made a lot of harm,ignor­ing or confrontin­g Chavez he created a hateful society of presidents in Latin American who are turning its citizens and countries against the USA and running into comunisms, socialisms and God knows what else.
So Mr Penn, support Obama but no Chavez , he is not really a democrat