Sean Penn Tops Stephen Colbert in 'Metaphor-Off'

By: E&P Staff In a long-awaited (two days) epic showdown, leftwing actor Sean Penn beat rightwing TV pundit Stephen Colbert in a "metaphor-off" Thursday night on the latter's Comedy Central 'Colbert Report.'

The duel was moderated by former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

Penn trailed 1-0 going to the final round, as he kept ending every metaphor by quoting from his recent antiwar reference to President Bush's "soiled and bloodstained underwear."

But the final challenge was to provide the metaphor for a picture of President Bush -- standing in bloodstained underwear. Colbert was stumped while Penn said something about going to war on false pretenses -- for which he received 10,000,000 points and an easy win.

Colbert broke down in tears but thanked Penn for coming. Then he threatened to challenge George Clooney in a similar contest.