How Sean Penn Failed

Sean Penn says his Rolling Stone article failed because it did not foster the conversation he wanted, which was the uselessness of the drug war.

I argued last week that glamorizing El Chapo is a terrible way of calling attention to the problems of the drug war. Now Penn says:

"Let's go to the big picture of what we all want," Penn said. "We all want this drug problem to stop. We all want them -- the killings in Chicago to stop. We are the consumer. Whether you agree with Sean Penn or not, there is a complicity there. And if you are in the moral right, or on the far left, just as many of your children are doing these drugs."

Yet what he achieved was to make El Chapo exciting. People are talking about him and not at all about the bigger picture. The interview was a bad idea. Exciting for him, I guess, but counterproductive.