Very good article. I particularly like the wisdom of the anecdote about Reinaldo Arenas who left Cuba saying: "The difference between the communist and capitalist systems is that, although both give you a kick in the ass, in the communist system you have to applaud, while in the capitalist system you can scream. And I came here to scream."

I would add that it is not purely a liberal fault to applaud left leaning dictators, those on the right have been equally guilty of making champions out of very nasty pieces of work.

The truth is that when leaders are seen to be effective they gain admirers, even if they accumulate power by flouting law and convention. There have been Democratic movements in Germany, Japan and Russia which were overwhelmed by the politics of thuggery. The politics of thuggery have frequently been employed in the United States, against and for municipal governments, state governments, and labor unions.

It shows up in the ancient histories of Greece and Rome. There are at least two cases where the institution of Democracy is credited as being a response to extreme misuse of public power made into personal power (rape, where the victimized man's wife did the honorable thing and killed herself)

It is a never ending battle between legal methods and political objectives, the refrain being "does the end justify the means?"

An excellent American literary response to the issue was the book "All The King's Men" by the poet Robert Penn Warren, loosely based on the life of Huey Long.

A great British effort was the "I Claudius" series by the English poet Robert Graves. The BBC series had a great line in it where a historian says to a usurper: "You are the reason why mankind must not lose its sense of smell!"