Penn stopped by CBS to chat with Charlie Rose this morning, where he declared that his article “failed” at furthering the conversation about the War on Drugs. But the failure wasn’t because of his turgid prose, or the murky ethics of interviewing a fugitive and letting him review the article before publication. No, instead it was because readers just didn’t get it and preferred to talk about boring old “ethics.”
“I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy on the War on Drugs,” he said. You can watch Penn rationalize his decisions and ask actual journalists for their “journalist license” on 60 Minutes this Sunday or on Charlie Rose on Monday.