The politics of stance-ing

One minute he’s the mellow surfer dude from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and the next he’s punching out hapless reporters and jetting off to Iraq to annoy the U.S. government. The former Mr. Madonna takes himself and his opinions v-e-r-y seriously, which makes it doubly amusing that the Iraqis are quoting Penn as declaring, among other things, that “Iraq is completely clear of weapons of mass destruction.”
Penn’s harried publicist, Mara Buxbaum, responds, “Oh, please! I don’t know where those statements are being fabricated from. This is specifically propaganda. It’s a twisted interpretation of what he said. They are twisting his words.” Imagine that.