I heard a media analyst make an astonishing comparison this afternoon on National Public Radio.

The discussion on NPR was about actor Sean Penn’s interview — published in Rolling Stone — with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the despicable drug lord who was on the lam from his escape from a Mexican prison.

This analyst seemed to make a direct comparison between El Chapo and Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi, all of whom were interviewed by the media before they met their deaths.

Hmmm. There’s something of a difference here.

Hussein and Gadhafi were heads of state; bin Laden hadn’t been convicted of anything, even though the entire world knew of his involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Guzman was an escapee from a maximum-security prison. Mexican authorities had been scouring the country looking for him since his escape six months ago.

Penn’s access to this individual — whose drug activities have produced so much death and misery — was a function of his own celebrity status as an Oscar-winning film actor.

I keep coming back to what I believe is a central question: Doesn’t an American citizen such as Penn have an obligation to assist authorities in their search for a notorious drug dealer?

Sen. Marco Rubio was asked over the weekend to comment on the interview. The Republican presidential candidate said Penn is entitled to his First Amendment rights, but then he used a term with which I agree.

He called the interview “grotesque.”