Sean Penn is nostalgic for George W. Bush

SAN FRANCISCO — Actor and activist Sean Penn told an audience of security geeks Friday that "the defecation on America that is the Republican debate" is making him nostalgic for President George W. Bush, something he finds amazing.

Penn spoke on the final day of the RSA computer security conference, an annual event that was especially newsy this year due to the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI.

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He was asked by RSA program chair Hugh Thompson who he backed in this year’s presidential election.

Penn grimaced, then said maybe he’s simply not being democratic enough in how he thinks about the election because he's clearly not taking into account "the true interests of my fellow Americans."

“So many of them truly want to hate each other, want to bottom out their community so they can rise up in it, want to really devastate the rest of the world and maybe get into a civil war,” he said.

If that is what the mass of Americans want, “I’m going to have to consider Trump-Cruz,” he said.

As to his actual ballot, Penn was straightforward.

“I think Bernie Sanders is an exceptional American, and I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton,” he said to applause from the audience.

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He also spoke about the film work he had found meaningful, citing “Milk,” the 2008 biographical film of gay activist Harvey Milk he starred in.

He said he clearly remembered when the news hit that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, had been assassinated in 1978.

Penn next paused to look around the large auditorium where the discussion was taking place.

“It’s interesting to be in the Moscone Center,” he said. The downtown conference center where the 40,000-person RSA conference was being held was named for the slain mayor.

PENN ON JOURNALISM

Penn made news recently with an interview published in Rolling Stone magazine with Mexican drug lord Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo. It was the most recent in a list of journalistic pieces he’s written over the years, including post-invasion Iraq in 2004 and the Iranian elections in 2005 for the San Francisco Chronicle.

In his view, journalism today is being “slaughtered” by the 24-hour news cycle.

“You can’t do journalism,” with those quick turnarounds, he said. “You can say what happened but you can’t say how it happened.”

Asked by Thompson whether the hack attack that took down Sony Pictures Entertainment had had a chilling affect on Hollywood, Penn was pessimistic about the film industry.

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It didn’t take outsiders to stifle ideas when increasing creative self-censorship does it so well.

His colleagues “are essentially Pacmen of jobs and money and validation – fame,” he said. They have “completely forgotten that which inspired them in the first place.”

Follow technology reporter Elizabeth Weise at @eweise.