By Lee Pfeiffer
There's probably one thing that people on the political left and right can agree on: dictators are bad. Unfortunately, director Oliver Stone is not among them. Stone's latest controversial film, South of the Border, has him in the midst of a firestorm because the movie is yet another of the Oscar-winner's wet kisses to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who is painted at a courageous humanitarian struggling to allow his people to rise above U.S. oppression. The film is being criticized for presenting an absurd portrait of a man who has used corruption, violence and the suspension of civil liberties to retain rule. Stone has been criticized by both liberals and conservatives over the years for acting as a "useful idiot", Lenin's term for naive do-gooders in the West who could be used for propaganda purposes. Actor/producer Tom Gregory takes on Stone in a column in which he suggests that he view Chaplin's classic The Great Dictator, made at a time when most of the world chose to ignore the dealings of another charismatic strongman named Adolf Hitler. For more click here