'You Commie, Homo-Loving Sons-of-Guns!'

It's not exactly news that there was at least one infuriatingly politicized acceptance speech at last night's Oscars, nor is it at all surprising that it came from Mr. Penn.

That said, I just can't resist teeing off on this one. First off, not to sound bitter, but Sean Penn has to be the greatest scourge in the history of the Oscars when it comes to robbing rightful Best Actor winners of their little golden bald guys.

Seriously, his first win (for Mystic River) was at least partially due to the Academy's guilt over not having given him the award before, and everybody knew that it should have gone to Bill Murray for Lost In Translation (who, as a comic actor, did not have have as good a chance of ever being nominated again).

Then he decided to use his acceptance speech to not only trash Prop 8, but personally insult everyone who voted for it. I don't care which side of any issue you are on - the Oscars are simply NOT the forum to lecture the American public on politics.

Imagine what it would be like if, while hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers decided to use his time at the microphone to trash a political cause. I get the feeling that the NFL would have frowned on that.

And while we're on the subject, the best word he could think of to describe Barack Obama was "elegant"? Never mind "principled" or "compassionate" or "peace-loving" - he's "elegant"! What the heck does that even mean? I'm not the world's best interpreter, but after consulting my Elitist-English dictionary, I think that phrase translates roughly as "I'm so glad we don't have to put up with that stupid hayseed anymore. Who cares about politics, I want a president I can eat caviar with."

Listen, I'm sure that Sean Penn did a fantastic job in Milk (and Mystic River for that matter) - he's a fine actor and deserves the praise he gets for his work. As politicized as the Academy can be, they still know better than to nominate sub-par performances. To be honest, I even liked the self-deprecating "commie, homo-loving sons-of-guns" joke. Still, was it really necessary for him to make such a thorough fool of himself?

And one last thing. I find it ridiculously ironic that, despite getting two Best Actor Oscars that were arguably not awarded on merit, Penn got shafted the one time in the last decade he actually deserved the award. Sorry, but I have no clue how Denzel Washington won in 2001 (for Training Day) when Penn gave such a spectacular performance as a man with Downs Syndrome in I Am Sam.