Sean Penn, Jesse Jackson, Jr. Pay Final Respects to Hugo Chavez

Sean Penn couldn’t let late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez go without one last goodbye.

The Oscar-winning actor, an unabashed admirer of Chavez, attended the leader’s memorial service today along with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Penn, who released an emotional statement to the press shortly after Chavez’s death, allowed Jackson spin the leader’s legacy. 

“Hugo fed the hungry. He lifted the poor. He raised their hopes. He helped them realize their dreams,” Jackson said, according to Bloomberg. “And so today we do mourn because we lost a lot. But we have a lot left: a stable government, an orderly transition.”

The Miami Herald’s editorial on the occasion of Chavez’s death is an appropriate retort to the well wishers mourning the strongman’s passing.

Dead at 58, Hugo Chávez leaves behind a country in far worse condition than it was when he became president, its future clouded by rivals for succession in a constitutional crisis of his Bolivarian party’s making and an economy in chaos….

In an energy-rich country that once knew no blackouts, electrical shortages are frequent, the result of Mr. Chávez’s plundering of the country’s public oil company. In a country that once enjoyed a thriving free market, prices are controlled and food items often scarce.