Nick Taranto is the co-founder of Plated.com. https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/contributor/nick-taranto/rss en Government & Pro-Government Forces Sat, 07 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000 Nick Taranto https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/community/2013/09/07/i-met-bashar-al-assad-he-was-pretty-cool https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/community/2013/09/07/i-met-bashar-al-assad-he-was-pretty-cool In May of 2008, as a 24-year-old student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, I went on a two-week, student-led trip to Lebanon and Syria. As part of that trip, we had unprecedented access to Bashar Al Assad and his wife Asma.