Joseppi, I'm always outraged by dictators. So I wouldn't classify my concern as sudden, and the interest here relates to a local legislator making a recent visit with one. As I've written before, I use the acronym TOPICAL to determine if something is newsworthy (the more news factors involved, the more newsy): T (Timely; yes, recently happened); O (Odd or unusual; can you recall the last time a wayward junior U.S. legislator met unannounced with a heinous dictator?); P (Proximity, AKA the local tie; check); I (Impacts a large number of people; I'd say a U.S. rep delving into international affairs and then taking the dictator's line of rhetoric back to her country qualifies); C (Conflict or controversy involved; check); A (About a prominent person in the community; check); L (Larger issue involved; yes, as you have noted, intervention/or not is one of the biggest issues in U.S. foreign policy; intervention should be a last resort, but it seems to me that Syria qualifies at this point).