This profile of Asma al-Assad, wife of the Syrian dictator, is remarkable. In fact, it’s hard to read it and not think it was written with tongue in cheek! I mean, to read things like:
Asma’s husband, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president in 2000, after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, with a startling 97 percent of the vote.
Why yes, 97 percent is startling! Except when you are a dictator, of course, which is what the Assads were and are.
After reading that concoction, head back to reality and read this: Syria News – Protests (2011) in the NYTimes.com. Here’s a key passage:
The country’s president is Bashar al-Assad, the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled with an iron hand for three decades before his death in 2000. The Assads belonged to the Allawite sect, a minority that came to hold most of the top positions in the government and military. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria was reviled in the West for its support of terrorist groups and generally isolated even from more moderate Arab countries. Bashar al-Assad from time to time made gestures toward greater openness. But it remained one of the region’s most repressive regimes.
If you want to learn more about the Assads, one place you can start is here: Hama massacre
If you want to learn what life is like for the aristocracy, especially what it is like before the revolutions occur, read Vogue.
Smart People I Know 
Here’s the latest out of Syria, as of Easter Saturday, with security forces killing over 100 non-violent protesters.
No doubt there will be much more slaughter by the Assads in the upcoming weeks and months.
More on Syria as of June 1st: images of dead children resulting from a government crackdown written about here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110601/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria
It makes the article in Vogue even more despicable.