Kal Penn praises Obama, neglects to mention pot in DNC speech

Dashing hopes of marijuana lovers (and probably frat boys) everywhere, Indian-American actor Kal Penn—aka Kumar from the Harold & Kumar movies—made not a single reference to pot while speaking out in support of his former boss, President Barack Obama, during a speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night.

Nor did Penn make mention of his personal rise to Hollywood stardom as a raunchy pot-smoking character in the Harold & Kumar film trilogy, which exploded in college towns nationwide in 2004, when Penn and his co-star, John Cho, hit a White Castle hamburger joint. Penn, who left a leading role on the FOX medical drama "House," began volunteering for Obama in 2007 and was a public-engagement official in the White House until 2010.

"I've worked on a lot of fun movies, but my favorite job was having a boss who gave the order to take out [Osama] bin Laden and is cool with us getting gay married," he said. "So thank you, invisible man in the chair, for that."

Obama's position on medical marijuana was referenced during the first-ever presidential Ask Me Anything on the popular social bookmarking site Reddit. Obama did not acknowledge his record of raids on medical marijuana facilities—he authorized more than George W. Bush. (Related: A character portrayal of Bush famously smoked weed with Penn and Cho in "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay.")

Penn's speech was broadcast in full on MSNBC while CNN and Fox News interviewed Democratic surrogates Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.