Hugo Chavez fans worried that the Latin American strongman might get torched by Sean Penn are resting easier after the movie star's soft-spoken Letterman appearance this week.

Penn has been mostly reticent about his summer jaunt with Chavez, hinting that his upcoming report on the event may look less like the soiled underwear-referencing jeremiad
he dropped on President Bush and more like Andy Samberg's digital mash-up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Penn rejected Letterman's suggestion that Chavez might be "nuts" and "wacky," describing him instead as "a very fascinating guy" who has "done, for the moment, incredible things for the 80 percent of the people that are very poor there." For someone with far Left leanings, it's understandable how Chavez's use of Venezuela's booming oil revenues to play Socialist Santa Claus to his country's long-suffering lower class may hold a certain appeal. But still unknown is how Penn reconciles the media crack-down and free-speech restraints Chavez has implemented in the past.

In a prescient, hard-edged open-letter to President Bush before the Iraq war, Penn indicted the president for his "intolerance of debate" and "marginalization of your critics." And after his highly publicized trip to Iran in 2005, Penn wrote about the lack of free speech there and the courage of those who spoke against the oppressive Iranian regime nonetheless.

But when it comes to Chavez's repression of the media (as he vastly expands his unilateral powers), it seems Penn may refrain from any criticism in the upcoming article. He suggested to Letterman that the media outlet Chavez shut down earlier this year would have received much harsher treatment here in the states, noting that the "loons on Fox News broadcast there every day."

One can only guess that the paparazzi-punching star's concerns about the freedom of a nervous Venezuelan press corps were diminished considerably during his visit when, according to the New York Times, a truckload of journalists "cheered ... when they got shots of Mr. Penn urinating on the side of the road."