In terms of lifestyle, dictators and rock stars occupy the same stratum. Consider only a fraction of what they share: palace residences, obsessively broadcast concern for the poor, appearances before strange crowds who chant their names, flattery from identical media sycophants, protection from hired flunkies who allow their eccentricities full expression, an ever-ready foul word for Israel, and another for the United States. Experientially, rock stardom is dictatorship without death squads and the pretense of governance.
Perhaps that’s why newly released pictures of British rock star Sting laughing it up with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2008 seem to capture a moment of natural affinity. Who but a rock star understands the demands of the dictatorial daily grind? Viewing photos in the Daily Mail of the two happy men with glamorous wives in tow, it’s easy to imagine they’re trading stories of bumbling private-jet stewards or the headaches of polo-court installation or condemning rapacious capitalists (present company celebrated, of course) or whatever else the dictator-rock star class gets up to when not dictating or rock starring.
