[wagglebee]

Actually, there have been a few dictators that the leftists didn't like:
Battista (Cuba, overthrown by Castro in 1959)
The Somozas (Nicaragua, overthrown by the Soviet-backed Sandinistas in 1979)
The Shah of Iran (overthrown by Islamic Jihadist terrorists in 1979)

So, to the leftists credit, they do look at a dictator's politics before they endorse him.

[Kaslin]

I don't think the Shah of Iran was a dictator

[docbnj]

Actually, the Shah was a monarch, not really a dictator in the modern sense; he was far better than what followed.

Batista was a Cuban politician who operated within constitutional constraints for much of his career. Cuban politics has long been a scene of turmoil, and Batista was probably no worse than other players on that stage, and certainly better than Castro. For one of the few balanced accounts, see: http://geocities.com/pwhce/batista.html

The Somozas were elected presidents, and followed constitutional practice. There last president overthrown by communists. Anastasio Somoza Debayle, American educated and pro-US, was assassinated in exile by Sandinista agents. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Debayle

None of these three were dictators of the type or to the degree of those who followed them.