Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich appeared on Syrian television to condemn the United States for its "illegal occupation" of Iraq, and he went on to praise Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, for his human-rights record.

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich appeared on Syrian television to condemn the United States for its "illegal occupation" of Iraq, and he went on to praise Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, for his human-rights record. In the footsteps of every tyrant come useful idiots and apologists of this type. Illegal occupation exactly describes how Assad was manipulated into the office of president by his father's gangster clique in order to protect their looting of the country. He and his family or senior cronies are responsible for political murder and the dispatch of terrorists into Iraq. Hundreds of Kurds and scores of dissidents are in Syrian prisons, and some are tortured while others disappear. Kucinich claims to love his own country, but he betrays everything it stands for.