Actor Sean Penn, who made a controversial three-day “fact finding” trip to Baghdad last winter, has paid to have a massive, rambling essay published in the New York Times defending his visit to the Iraqi capital.
Printed in small, compact type, the essay touches not only on the war but references to Penn’s 12-year-old daughter.
 Sean Penn |
According to a report in Editor & Publisher, the paid ad appears on page A-11 of today’s edition of the Times with the headline “Kilroy’s Still Here.” It ends with the tag line “For information or comments: [email protected].”
This isn’t the first time Penn has gone on the defensive about his trip. As WorldNetDaily reported, the actor told CNN’s Larry King that he went to Baghdad seeking information, but didn’t feel he was in a position to share what he learned with the American people.
Insisting in an interview he doesn’t think he ”hurt this country’s position,” Penn accused the Bush administration of trying to ”herd us into this position. We as citizens have to take stock of our own conscience on these issues.”
Nor is this the first time Hollywood’s “bad boy” has used a major newspaper to communicate his views. In October, Penn paid for a $56,000 advertisement in the Washington Post accusing President Bush of stifling debate over Iraq. Today’s ad cost $125,000, according to MSNBC.
In today’s missive, Penn said following his trip he was “misrepresented” by both the U.S. and Iraqi media.
“I’m neither a peace activist nor a partisan politico,” he asserts.
According to Editor & Publisher, Penn said he took the trip partly because there were “troubling questions about our nation’s understanding of this pending conflict. Its most accessible information sources were the corporately sponsored and largely conservative media outlets.” And he worried about “what effect U.S. decisions today might have on my children’s tomorrows.”
In addition to defending his action, he took a swipe at President Bush’s tailhook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce the end of major combat in Iraq.
“I didn’t need a second viewing of this one,” he wrote. “Tom Cruise was fine by me” – a reference to the film “Top Gun.”
In closing the essay, Penn urges Americans to “participate in an educated democracy.”
“We must speak,” he wrote. “We must question … and soon, we must do one more thing … we must vote.”
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