If you didn’t know any better, you would almost think that Sean Penn wants to make it extremely easy for conservatives to criticize Hollywood for being overly liberal. He’s flown to Cuba to interview his hero Fidel Castro:

Oscar-winning actor and political activist Sean Penn flew to Cuba hoping to interview its revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, entertainment news website TMZ reported Sunday.

“Sean (Penn) is going to the land of Fidel as a journalist, writing a story for Vanity Fair (magazine) about how the (Barack) Obama administration has affected Cuba,” TMZ reported…

“Barclays sources say Sean and Diana are going to meet (Fidel) Castro — presumably because that’s what Diana told them,” the website reported. Penn’s representative also told TMZ a meeting was possible.

Vanity Fair sent Penn shortly after Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that President Obama asked Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to talk to Cuba. “Tell Raul that if he does not take steps, neither can I,” Obama told the PM. “We are making efforts, but if they do not make efforts, it will be very difficult for us to continue.”

Is Penn truly acting on VF’s behalf, or will he go to Cuba because the Obama administration wants him to convince Fidel and Raul Castro to reach out to the U.S.?

It never ceases to amaze me that Hollywood-stars sympathize so much with ruthless dictators like Castro. You would think they understand that associating with mass murderers is harmful to their reputations. But no, they have been inside Hollywood’s leftist bubble for so long, they do not even realize the impact these kinds of adventures have on their image, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Next time Penn feels the need to interview a head of state, perhaps he could travel to Poland to talk to President Vaclav Klaus. Unlike Castro, Klaus is pro-America, pro-free markets, pro-freedom and anti-global warming; such an interview would at least be surprising.

You know… kind of like when Bush was trying win a war in Iraq – and all those left wingers stood behind him.

And that’s my first point: The right has every right to gloat over Obama’s humiliation, because, thankfully, NO ONE DIED. Unlike, say during the Iraq war, where, whenever there was a roadside bombing, the progressives did their own special victory dance – using the consequences of war to gloat over an embattled president and an unpopular country. I didn’t hear much of the smarmy press calling them out.

So, if I take pleasure in watching Obama’s big fail, it’s only because it proved a point I made before he was elected: that being likeable, in and of itself, does nothing for America. To protect our nation and further our interests, our leader must reject the need to be loved by the world, and embrace being feared, even hated. I know that’s hard for our guy. Being a self-proclaimed “citizen of the world,” he enjoys the accolades of Libya, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Russia. With friends like that, who needs enemies.

But hey – screw the Olympics. Maybe Obama should now focus on bringing the World’s Fair back to Chicago. If there’s one thing that could make dictators like us more, it would be temporary structures filled with stuff from other countries. They look positively magical, even if they’re flimsy and fall apart in a strong wind.

Which sounds familiar.

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.

Tonight we’ve got Jim Norton, S.E. Cupp, Mark Prindle and Ron Geraci!

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: Town Hall Meetings, Health Care, Union Violence, President Obama, Cash For Clunkers, Cokie Roberts, Obama as The Joker, Russian Submarines, Cuba, Michael Moore, and Ryan O’Neal.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: 

President Obama, Kim Kardashian, Lou Dobbs, Andrea Mitchell, Obama Health Care Plan, New York City, Homeless People, Cuba, A.N.S.W.E.R., and Larry King.

He was so excited (agitated?) when he got back that he asked if he could make a video of his impressions of “Transformers 2″ and post it on Big Hollywood. “I don’t know, Tío, that movie’s been out for a couple of weeks now, Big Hollywood is a blog, it’s all about what’s happening right now.” Tío Chano assured me that he’d find a way to make it current. So I relented. Why not? I hadn’t planned on posting anything this week anyway. So, here he is, my Tío Chano. Oh, and by the way: Spoiler alert!

Manuel Zelaya

July Fourth, the OAS ejected Honduras from its membership for refusing to reinstate Zelaya, but too late. The defiant interim Honduran government, now led by Roberto Micheletti, had already said in so many words, “you can’t fire me! I quit!” In short, the mouse gave the eagle the finger. I can appreciate that. At present, the possibility of sanctions is very real, a fact that could hurt the already hardscrabble nation very deeply, especially if the coffee trade is affected.

From the blustering we’re hearing from Chavez, Ortega and even President Obama himself, you’d think it would only be a matter of time before armies are lined up at the Honduran border, ready to reinstate democracy at the point of a gun. Yet who are the real democrats here? For that, you need to know the backstory. Let’s face it, you can’t properly review a movie unless you know all the plot intricacies. There are enough here for a Hitchcock film.

Let’s take a trip in the Wayback Machine to June 25th. Supposedly, the supremely democractic elected leader of Honduras, President Manuel Zelaya, was rousted in his pajamas and tossed into the cargo hold of a Costa Rica-bound fruit plane by a power-grabbing military junta, going by major news media reporting. Wrong. He was allowed to dress. I guess there’s a different kind of Pajamas Media out there now. You know. The good one’s evil twin. What else is new?

But much more important, it appears that President Zelaya was actively engaged in violating the Honduran Constitution by pushing an illegal ballot referendum to extend his term in office that had been vehemently opposed by the Honduran Supreme Court, the attorney general, the Congress and even Zelaya’s own party. On June 25th, in violation of Supreme Court order, President Zelaya ordered the commander of Honduras’ armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, to distribute the illegal ballots which, curiously, had just arrived from Venezuela courtesy of Hugo Chavez.

Gen. Vasquez refused. Zelaya fired him. The senior Honduran military command resigned in protest, and also refused to carry out Zelaya’s illegal order. The Supreme Court ruled Zelaya’s firing of Gen. Vasquez illegal on a 5-0 vote and ordered Zelaya to reinstate him. Zelaya refused, and continued with his attempt to impose the illegal ballot referendum on the Honduran people.

It was at this point the Honduran government had had enough of Manuel Zelaya and booted him out of the country. Some news reports indicate Zelaya was given the choice of resignation or imprisonment on charges of treason. If so, Zelaya had a lot more to gain flying out of the country ‘in his pajamas’ and whining to all his Leftist Socialist friends around the world, of which there is no shortage these days. The State Run Media, of course (ours, not Honduras), played out the Zelaya sob story to perfection, with all those messy Honduran Constitutional details somehow unreported.

All except for the Wall Street Journal, which titled their opinion piece on the subject, “Honduras Defends Its Democracy.” It’s a must-read, especially given all the blatantly pro-Zelaya coverage in the Vein Stream Media. The Honduran-based Fausta’s Blog has been covering these events for months. Gateway Pundit also has some incredible coverage of events in Honduras that you just won’t see anywhere else.

Was it a military coup? Look at how events proceeded and you tell me. The president of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, also a member of Zelaya’s Liberal Party, was appointed Zelaya’s interim successor as called for in the Honduras Constitution. The Army went back to their barracks. The senior military officers were reinstated along with Gen. Vasquez.

Now, we all know what military coups look like. We’ve seen them in Thailand, Myanmar, all over the world. Yet never in any previous hardline coup by a ruthless military junta did I see tens of thousands of ordinary citizens swarming to the streets in support of it, even celebrating. You’d have thought it was the Fourth of July in Tegucigalpa! Oh yeah, it was.

There are certainly plenty of Zelaya supporters protesting, but compare the crowd sizes at the Gateway Pundit site linked above. It’s an eye-opening demonstration of how the news media can totally distort public perception by focusing on the dozens and ignoring the tens of thousands.

I have also not heard one condemnation by either the press, President Obama or any other government about Hugo Chavez’ threats to invade Honduras, a sovereign nation, in order to get his illegal ballot investment back. By the way, the same OAS that belatedly ejected Honduras for anti-democratic activities has just now welcomed Cuba, the 7th-happiest nation on earth, as a full member in good standing.

The ironies here could not be blacker. All branches of the Honduran government, legislative, executive and judicial, which appear to have exercised Constitutional jurisprudence in this matter, while Maneul Zelaya has done anything but, are the objects of righteous wrath and perhaps even sanctions by the Obama Administration in the form of aid cutoff and other punitive economic measures. Military cooperation has already been suspended.

Yet the real coup and bloodshed of innocents in Iran is met by Obama with reluctantly withdrawn Fourth of July BBQ invites to Iranian diplomats, and not much else. President Obama is even opposing financial sanctions on Iran at the upcoming G8 meeting, and is working overtime to undermine their implementation. All the other G8 members but Russia favor them. Might as well say “Happy Fourth of July, Honduras and Iran! Viva Zelaya! Signed, President Obama. PS Sorry about the BBQ disinvites, Iran. Too much bad press.” And I thought Jimmy Carter was pathetic.

I for one stand with Honduran people. The evidence seems quite clear to me that the Honduran government acted in Constitutional fashion, and President Zelaya did not. I say BUY HONDURAN! Contact the Honduran embassy at embassy@hondurasemb.org and let them know that REAL Americans stand for freedom and democracy, and against tinpot wannabe dictators-for-life like Zelaya and Chavez in full measure. Feel free to let the White House and State hear it, too.

Our President does not speak for us. He certainly doesn’t for me. But as one blog commenter summed it up beautifully, “NOTE TO PRESIDENT: If you find yourself on the same side of any issue as Chavez, Ortega and the Castro brothers, it’s time rethink your position.” What he said.

Lastly, I would much rather be screenwriting, and will again after this oped. At least until the next outrage. But who else is even covering this issue the way it demands to be? You know, people, it’s bad enough when the Obama press corps kneels at the altar in humiliating fashion. Quite another when that same media plays up an apparent democratic overthrow into a ruthless military coup for political purposes. It gets into scary Eastasia-Eurasia territory, and I really don’t like it.

And when I REALLY don’t like it, that’s when you’ll see me here. Some things are just way more important than film. Like standing with the Honduran people, in the face of a Leftist propaganda and political onslaught that threatens their democracy a hell of a lot more than Manuel Zelaya ever could.

–

From the USA Today:

The still untitled film, which opens Oct. 2, will zero in on the corporations and politicians he says caused the global financial crash.

Wall Street robber barons are Moore’s new on-screen enemy.

“The movie is not going to be an economics lesson; it’s going to be more like a vampire movie,” the filmmaker jokes. “Instead of the main characters feasting on the blood of their victims, they feast on the money. And they never seem to get enough of it.”

When the collapse walloped the country last September, Moore says he knew not only that it would matter to regular people, but also that the inherent decadence was ripe for his style of satire.

“If you go to see my movies, even if you don’t agree with everything in the movies, you’re going to have a good laugh,” Moore says. “I want them to walk out at the end saying ‘Wow, that was something!’ And in this case, maybe they also walk out asking the ushers, ‘Um, excuse me. Where are the pitchforks and torches?’”

Moore’s cinematic hey-day has hopefully passed. ”Sicko” made less than 25% of what “Fahrenheit 9/11″ cleared, and Moore’s last film, a love letter to himself, ended up being distributed on “Captain Mike’s” website … free of charge.

Admittedly, while I agree with nothing Moore stands for, that doesn’t mean he’s not a talented filmmaker. During the summer of 2007, the summer of the terrible threes: Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Oceans 3, Bourne 3, Pirates 3… “Sicko” was the rare entertaining bright spot.

As propaganda, however, “Sicko” failed and then some. If anything, the film’s lack of intellectual firepower and comically absurd portrayal of Cuba’s health care system probably set the socialized medicine cause back a few years.

As chance would have it, at the very moment Moore was summoning everything he had to convince me to back his cause, I was awaiting final test results regarding a spot on my lung. A big one. Combine my family history of cancer and my personal history of alarmism and you got yourself one sorry s.o.b. ready to renounce everything he’s ever stood for if it means just one more day of life. But even with the Grim Reaper sharing my tub of popcorn, Moore’s engaging but profoundly stupid propaganda piece only increased my gratitude for our wildly imperfect health care system.

The spot on my lung turned out to be nothing, by the way. But I am closer to Jesus.

Anyone who has read Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Cucullu’s fascinating and meticulously documented book “Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind The Myths Of Guantanamo Bay” easily understands the merits of keeping Gitmo open.   In fact, Lieutenant Colonel Cucullu makes a compelling case for expanding Gitmo so as to house convicted terrorists like Jose Padilla and Zacharias Moussaoui, (currently in maximum security prisons here in the US) since they are privy to a vast trove of vital intelligence information, presently unavailable because convicts in American prisons cannot be interrogated.

Be that as it may, the lopsided Senate vote against President Obama’s request for $80 million to fund his wish-upon-a-star fantasy that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay simply vanish, gives me hope that in the end cooler heads than those at MoveOn.org will prevail in this debate. 

Of course, the problem now arises of where future funding will come from to keep Gitmo in operation while Democrats spin their wheels debating what to do with it.  If they refuse to allocate the necessary funds to keep it up and running, it seems they will have painted themselves into a rather embarrassing corner: no money to fund its operation, no money to close it down, and no place to put the terrorists. 

Certainly, in these troubled economic times, intelligent people should all agree that fiscal responsibility mandates some sort of well-thought-out financial husbandry.  In light of that, there seems to be only one alternative left to the Democrats hell-bent on closing Gitmo.  Once all the money runs out, the obvious thing will be to simply shut it down.  Lock all the gates, turn out the lights, pack up, and leave.  No muss.  No fuss.  Let the terrorists fend for themselves and in a few days or weeks, nature will take its course and solve the problem of what to do with them.  Awhile later, Nancy Pelosi can declare Gitmo a National Treasure (like Alcatraz) and, now that travel restrictions to Cuba are being relaxed, MoveOn.org can begin organizing “Bash Bush” tourist excursions.  In the end, it will result in millions of dollars saved and possibly even a net financial gain. 

I think this approach to Gitmo is what Vice President Biden must have been referring to in his commencement address at Wake Forest last week when he so astutely stated, “There’s not a single issue on this President’s plate that will not yield a change.  Just merely by ignoring it, it will change.”   Ignoring the detention center at Guantanamo Bay may be the only option left.  It is heartening that a coherent policy is finally beginning to emerge from this Administration

Late 1950s, Toledo, Ohio, USA.

The Hero, rugged, blue-eyed, blonde-haired, is a searcher, misunderstood by family and friends. He is a freewheeling, Kerouacian type who in his twenties never kept a job or stayed in one place for long. He did a stint in the US Army: stationed in Japan, he went AWOL, got himself time in the brig and a dishonorable discharge. The Hero tried working on a ranch, scratch. Joined the circus. Nope, not a fit. Everywhere the Hero goes, he confronts the questions: Why am I here? What do I do? Now 30-ish, he needs a purpose in life.

The Hero

One day the Hero learns that another American, a close friend from his Army days, has been murdered by goons of the corrupt dictator of an island nation. The Hero heads down to the Island and joins the rebels to fight against the dictator that killed his buddy. For perhaps the first time in his life, the Hero finds someplace where he is needed, and where he can make a difference. He’s had freedom all his life and has not known what to do with it; he finally finds his purpose: helping others fight for their freedom. The Hero’s military training proves invaluable to the rebels, among whom he eventually rises to the rank of Comandante, the highest rank in the rebel army. He falls in love with, and marries, Olga, a lovely 22-year-old rebel who is as fiery and committed as he is, and they have two daughters. The rebels triumph over the dictator and at first the Hero and his wife are happy in their new life, but the leader of the rebels in due time reveals himself to be a worse dictator than the one who preceded him, turning to the far-right and establishing not just a new authoritarian dictatorship, but an out-and-out totalitarian dictatorship.

The Hero sees that friends of his from the former rebels are being arrested, imprisoned and even executed for speaking out against the totalitarian tack of the new dictator. The Hero and Olga begin stashing away guns, preparing for the day when the disciples of the new dictator come for them. The Hero is now a man without a country, as he has been stripped of his American citizenship by the U.S. State Department, a bureaucracy that does not understand that the Hero was fighting for freedom and justice all along, that the Hero never stopped being an American. The Hero and Olga are captured, dragged from their home and separated. The Hero is given a trial but the verdict was ordained before the court even convened. He writes Olga a last letter, which will not reach her until more than ten years after his death. “You have been my love, my happiness, my companion in life and in my thoughts in my hour of death…do not let your life become lifeless and sad,” he pleads with her.

The Hero stands in front of a firing squad. By most accounts, the new dictator and his younger brother are present at the execution; by some accounts, so is a rather creepy, long-haired fellow who speaks in the sing-song accent of a faraway country.

The executioner orders the Hero to kneel; the Hero answers:

“I kneel before no man.”

They riddle one of the Hero’s knees with machine-gun fire. He staggers but props himself up on one leg. They riddle the other knee with machine-gun fire, and only now does the Hero fall to his knees.

They fire at his shoulders and knock him onto his back.

The executioner, carrying the pistol with which he will deliver the kill shot, approaches the dying Hero and taunts him, “See, we made you kneel.”

The Hero’s last words: “I didn’t kneel.”

The executioner, knowing he can deliver death but not dishonor to the Hero, angrily fires multiple shots into the Hero’s skull, destroying the Hero’s noble face.

Olga is imprisoned for twelve awful years. The dictatorship inflicts savage beatings and solitary confinement upon her, but they cannot make her kneel, either. She never accepts “reeducation,” even though it would make her life much easier. Her feet are firmly planted. She comes to be regarded as a leader, a woman deeply committed to her principles, by her fellow prisoners.

Finally, Olga is released. After several years she leaves her country and finds her way to Toledo, and makes a new home there. She remarries, and begins a new life, but remains committed to obtaining justice for the Hero, eventually winning the restoration of his U.S. citizenship, indeed, winning a statement from the Department of State that the Hero’s citizenship had never been lost at all. She continues to this day to plead for the release of the Hero’s mortal remains to the United States.

Fifty years later, the dictator and his brother are still in power; it’s evident to all but the most dogmatic and foolish that the Hero was right to turn against the new dictator.

It would make a hell of a movie, wouldn’t it?

It’s a true story, by the way, except for one thing: the new dictator did not turn to the far-right, he turned to the far-left. Maybe that’s why this jaw-dropping tale hasn’t been made into a movie yet.

The island nation is Cuba, the now-not-so-new dictator is Fidel Castro, and the Hero’s name is William Morgan. He was executed in Cuba on March 11, 1961.

“I loved him intensely,” Olga told me. Now in her early seventies, Olga Morgan Goodwin is still radiant, and beautiful. William Morgan’s fight was ended by a coward’s bullets; Olga’s fight continues.

I had the extraordinary honor of observing the First Congress of Cuban Political Prisoners (Primer Congreso del Presidio Político Cubano), held from the 3rd to the 5th of April 2009 in Miami, and that’s where I met Olga, who continues to lobby the Castro government to release William’s remains so she can properly bury them in his (and now her) hometown of Toledo.

Will this epic tale ever make it to the big screen? It should have been done a long time ago. Had the movie been made in the 1960s, Steve McQueen would have made an excellent William Morgan. Had the tragedy of the Cuban Revolution happened thirty years before it did, the go-to guy to play Morgan would have been Gary Cooper. My wife thinks DiCaprio could play Morgan. Great actor, certainly, but I don’t quite see it. Matt Damon, maybe, but he’s a committed lefty and probably would not want to participate in a film in which the Castros and Che Guevara (the long-haired fellow at the execution) were portrayed in the harsh negative light of historical fact.

To me, the reason the story of William Morgan has not been made into a movie is that it does not fit Hollywood’s ideological narrative. I have no doubt that if William Morgan had been shot by Pinochet, Hollywood would have made this movie a long time ago. They’d probably be remaking it by now. However, the villain in this story is not some right-winger, and not some American multi-national corporation, but an America-hating, communist tyrant. And the Hero is a man who believes, perhaps naively by Hollywood’s standards, in Democracy. Nah, Hollywood will never touch this story.

Or will it? There has been talk of a William Morgan movie in the recent past, but Olga has not been consulted. To attempt to make a Morgan movie and omit Olga would be like making “Gone With The Wind” omitting Scarlett O’Hara. It would never work. The story of William Morgan is as much a love story as it is an adventure/war story. To omit the love story would be to make half a movie- and box office receipts would reflect that. Anyone wanting to film the story of William Morgan needs to start by talking with Olga.

Unlike Soderbergh’s awful “Che,” this would be a Cuba movie that could actually make some money. If Hollywood wants to do this movie right, Olga Morgan Goodwin has quite a story to tell. William’s own words, in his letter to Olga: “I only ask that someday the truth be known.”

Amen, William.

William and Olga Morgan