Department of Things You Already Knew: Sean Penn Is an Illiterate

Meghan McCain is, by comparison, a much more fluid and accomplished author.

His worldview is odious and evil -- but so too is his grammar.

And also, his ability to properly choose between "illusion" and "allusion."

Indeed, the actor now also self-identifies as a writer. In his 2009 paean to Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez published on the Huffington Post, Penn begins with typical humility: “The disadvantages of being a writer, who is often written about, are numerous.” And another disadvantage is that, because you are often written about, certain editors allow you to write.

Reading Penn’s journalism is not unlike consuming a Castro speech: it’s unbearably long, always rambling and tedious, and frequently incoherent. Take this latest dispatch from Penn’s Huffington Post blog, where he coughs up this furball: “Ostreicher, whose innocence was maligned by an arrest where only vague illusions to money laundering have been shown to be fabricated by corrupt officials within the Bolivian judiciary, whose motivation has proven to be extortion.”

Or how about this stew of words, which is apparently related to the shootings in Newtown, Conn.: “This can, and is, being very easily exampled with newly invigorated discussions with attention on the recognition and treatment of mental health, and certainly that is a priority. And to be responsible to that priority, we too have to recognize its applicability to the mental health of our American community at large.”

But I'm told it all reads much better in the original Retardese.

posted by Ace at 02:13 PM

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