Too bad Diane can't take a peek through Time's archives... say back to the Aug 28th, 1939 issue... just days befor Hitler invaded Poland. She would read an article called "Peace on Earth" that said: "Last week a few earnest men still had courage enough in their hearts to believe, in the face of cynics' laughter, that Germans can live on the earth in peace even with Britons and Frenchmen, Japanese with Chinese, and Russians with whoever are their enemies. These men hurried about Europe proposing conferences, asking for moratoriums, begging at least a pause. Their reward was not great. Berlin papers called their pleas the "tubercular coughs of senile sinners," and their proposals were either damned or neglected by the lieutenants of force. "Pope Pius XII received Casimir Papee, Polish Ambassador to the Holy See, heard Poland's side of the Battle of Danzig on the Vistula. Urging prudence "in this hour of grave decision," he dispatched an emissary to Warsaw to urge peace. "The dread (and, at week's end, dead) subject of Appeasement was revived, both by way of recrimination, and seriously by some who would still rather trust a proven deceiver than shoulder a gun. "Like a valiant David twirling his slingshot in the face of a giant adversary, King Leopold III of the Belgians invited six other little fellows—the Foreign Ministers of The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden—to join him in Brussels to: 1) draft a peace proposal to the powers; 2) pool their raw material resources to insure their neutrality in case the proposal went the way of other peace proposals. "Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano was as elusive as a cake of soap in the bottom of a bath. He had the Ambassadors of France, Great Britain and the U. S. pouncing all over Rome to try to pin him down. Count Ciano could guess what the three had to say, and he obviously did not want to hear it: he must do all in his power to stop the rolling stone before it gathered an avalanche to swallow them all, as Mari of Peace Mussolini did this time last year when he persuaded Hitler to call off his Army before Munich. Count Ciano's answer, heartily concurred in by Premier Mussolini: mum." Yeah... nice to know that those who would still rather trust a proven deceiver than shoulder a gun want to trust Assad to bring peace the way that their forefathers wanted to trust that little old peacemaker Mussolini.

He's articulate she says.  But is he CLEAN and articulate?

I see that Diane Sawyer neglected to ask Assad where he thinks the Al Qaeda terrorists led by Zarqawi got the 20 tons of nerve gas weapons siezed when the Jordanians broke up the plot to suicide gas bomb Amman.  Since it was obviously trucked across Syrian soil, his government most certainly should have an interest in this. There have also been persistent reports that Assad SUPPLIED these weapons to Al Qaeda from stocks received from Iraq just prior to September, 2003. I should think enquiring journalistic minds would want to know the answers to such questions  but that also presumes Sawyer has a mind.

At least Richard Clarke hasn't come out saying he has now studied the Assad situation as far back as needed (the Diane interview) and sees nothing in Assad's background that should keep US from capitulating position on human rights so fundamental to Democracy in Iraq.  Is looking back only a  few days enough?

What do you expect from an affirmative action hire.

She is like a bobble head doll and it is pathetic that some think she has the qualifications or talent to do her job.

Is this Mexico or the USA

Great moments in journalism that will never happen:

Sawyer to Assad:  There are reports that Saddam Hussein smuggled his storehouse of WMD's to Syria shortly before the American invasion.  Do you know anything about it?