Sean Penn doesn't care about the truth?

In the Media Matters Daily Summary today, there's an item about how, when Dennis Miller was a guest on Bill O'Reilly's program, they claimed that Obama supported Proposition 8.

Their conclusion being that therefore, Sean Penn was foolish to evoke Obama as "An elegant President" in the same Oscar speech in which he spoke against Prop 8. Except that Obama did not support Prop 8.

But that's not what made me say "What?" It's not news to me, or likely to any of you, that Bill O'Reilly is a pissant or that Dennis Miller regularly exhibits the maturity of a sulky adolescent.

But sometimes, they make me scratch my head in wonderment. Like for instance, if you scroll down the MM transcript of that segment of O'Reilly's show, you get to this little tidbit:

O'REILLY: ....But, look, Penn doesn't care about the truth. You know that.

Excuse me?

Ok, granted, I'm an admirer of Penn's. First of all, he's a phenomenal actor by any decent standard. Anyone who needs proof should look at the two films for which he has now won Academy Awards, Mystic River and Milk.

Not just because they're both great performances--although I certainly think they are--but because the characters are two completely different men, and Penn embodies them both. Or rather, he allows them to embody him.

I've come to admire him also as a man (inasmuch as you can know him from his public statements). He's one of the few actors exempt from my "actors shouldn't talk" rule.

He can even write a bit--I say "A bit," because I don't think I've read (or seen) enough of his writings to make a blanket statement.

Also I've just recently read a book about him. And all these things together make me feel safe in saying you cannot be an artist of the caliber that Penn is, and not care about truth.

Such an artist is, in fact, always looking for truth. You may not like what he finds or how he looks for it, you may not even agree that what he comes up with is indeed truth.

But to say that he doesn't care about it...well, honestly, that offends me much more than just O'Reilly flapping his gums again or Miller's latest desperate attempt at relevance.

It offends me. Particularly coming from the author of Those Who Trespass and the star of Joe Dirt.

Boys: Leave the talk of truth to those who not only care but actually know something about it. You know. Artists. Grown-ups.

(In some cases, they're not mutually contradictory.)