Another Democrat Goes to Damascus

Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination, blasted President Bush and the Iraq deployment during a visit with Syrian strongman Bashir Assad (via Memeorandum):

US Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, on a Mideast visit that included a stop in Syria, said the country lambasted by the Bush administration deserves credit for taking in more than a million Iraqi refugees.

Kucinich, a strong anti-war opponent who trails far in the US presidential polls, also said he won't visit Iraq on his trip to the region because he considers the US military deployment there illegal.

"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."

Kucinich, who accused the Bush administration of policies that have destabilized the Mideast, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus. He said Assad was receptive to his ideas of "strength through peace."

He also praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees.

And I'm sure Kucinich praised Assad for the arms pipeline he's providing for the transit of materiel from Iran to the Hezbollah thugs in Southern Lebanon.

Calls for diplomacy with Syria may be warranted (at least some have argued), but heaping such praise in a visit to the capital of a state that has allowed the free flow of insurgents in and out of Iraq , while at the same time refusing to make a stop in that country - with perhaps a goodwill gesture to the U.S. service personnel fighting valiantly there - ought to automatically disqualify Kucinich as a serious prospect for president of the United States.