Get Used To Disillusionment Dept.

I'd say that for Sean Penn, disillusionment is unavoidable -- and I think you, Gentle Reader, will have to agree with me, yea though thou art the truest of true believers in the Obamessiah. Jesus Christ himself would fail Penn's test:

"I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be." Um...oh, never mind, Sean.

[shaking head in bemused delight] Penn is, for us lovers of human folly, the gift that just keeps on giving. Do you remember his accepting an Academy Award a few years ago and giving the host a haughy lecture about how "Jude Law is one of our finest actors" -- having somehow, clearly, failed to realize that the host's throwaway line about Law in his opening monologue had been a joke? There's nothing funnier than a man who always takes himself seriously, and also suffers from inveterate rectal-cranial inversion. And by that standard, I defy you to find anybody on the planet funnier than Sean Penn. (I wish to goodness I could link to one particular Wikipedia parody site's article on Sean Penn, but that link would, alas, be too far over the line for this family-friendly blog.)

Now I'm going to have to go hunt up that Acadamy Award story or it'll bug me all night...

HT: Vodkapundit

UPDATE: The year was 2005, the host was Chris Rock, and here's the bit that got Penny's unmentionables all wadded, in which bit Rock argues that Hollywood should be pickier in its casting rather than settling for second best:

Clint Eastwood's a star, OK? Tobey Maguire's just a boy in tights. You want Tom Cruise and all you get is Jude Law. Wait. It's not the same thing. Who is Jude Law? Why's he in every movie I have seen in the last four years? He's in everything. Even the movies he's not in, if you look at the credits he made cupcakes or something. He's gay, he's straight, he's American, he's British. Next year he's playing Kareem Abdul Jabbar. You want Russell Crowe and all you can get is Colin Farrell? Wait. Alexander is not Gladiator. You want Denzel and all you can get is me? Wait. Denzel’s a fine actor. He woulda never made Pootie Tang.

Penn was one of the presenters later in the show, and here's his classic response -- and if you saw the clip (which doesn't seem to be on YouTube), you know that he was not joking in return, but was furiously, seriously honked off: "I just want to answer our host's question about who Jude Law is -- he's one of our finest actors."