The speech by Bashshar Al-Asad was really repugnant on so many levels--the content, the substance, the tone, and the delivery. You know that I don't care one bit about the March 14 Movement, but this audacious attempt by Bashshar to take credit for a fighting force that is not even part of his sleeping army was quite pathetic. He basically exploited the Lebanese resistance to Israeli aggression to bolster his own regime and to legitimize his tyrannical rule. Hizbullah does not help its image among non-Shi`te Lebanese when it does not distance itself from this lousy speech. One Hizbullah deputy, Husayn Hajj Hasan, initially did exactly that, but had later to withdraw his statement presumably under pressures from Hizbullah leadership.