Sean Penn has accused American President George W Bush's administration of being more corrupt than any past ruling government in the US.

The Oscar-winning actor insists the infamous Watergate scandal of the 1970s - which led to disgraced premier Richard Nixon's resignation - is "like child's play" compared to what the present government represents.

Penn recalls: "When Watergate came up, I was extremely interested. I don't think I missed, the hearings, a day of it.

"But at that time, I had come into a history class with a history teacher who got me pretty interested in government. I think it was the first thing I really paid a lot of attention to other than the war. And this wasn' t the most crooked thing I'd sensed in him."

On the subject of current government corruption, he adds: "No question about it. The arrogance with which it's played out.

"There's a kind of general lack of diversity of principle within the Congress. So I think when you can get something like the Patriot Act passed, it would be kind of like child's play to pull off a Watergate."