Arab governments are bad, even when they feign goodness. Syria releases some political prisoners. It makes it worse that they only did so under international pressure, and those prisoners should not have been prisoners in the first place. I noticed that Syrian dissident, `Arif Dalilah, was not released. His crime? He told jokes about Bushra Al-Asad while in his cell (and while being taped by a Mukhabarat agent), and for that he has languished in jail for years.