Many Gabbad supporters make the false equation of other Democrats visiting Assad with her actions

[thesquanderer]

14. Some good points, but also counterpoints

there aren't plenty of other progressives in government, who have dealt with the issues, who take her position

True. But being the only one who takes a position, or taking an unpopular position, does not automatically make it wrong.

She came back from meeting Assad and said she believed him that he hadn't gassed his own people

I could be wrong about this, but my understanding was that she never absolved him from using chemical warfare on his own people, but was unconvinced about two particular incidents. At least that's what's on her web site where she says:

There is evidence that both the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad as well as the armed opposition groups aligned against him have used chemical weapons (CW) during the Syrian war.

I have in the past expressed skepticism as to the actual source of two specific chemical weapons attacks: one at Khan Sheikhun on April 4, 2017, and the other at Douma on April 7, 2018.

Is this inconsistent with what she has said in the past?

She finds more of her support on her Assad position on the right side of the aisle.

True. But not every view more supported by the right is always automatically wrong, and not every view more supported by the left is always automatically right. Things don't always fall into simple Left-is-good and Right-is-bad boxes. Heck, Obama's ACA was originally a Republican plan. And here's a clip of Bernie Sanders actually agreeing with Trump about something, and like him or not, no one is going to say he doesn't generally represent the views of a significant chunk of the party.

I don't think knee-jerking the opposite view of the prevailing right position on EVERY topic has to be the definition of an acceptable Dem.

She also lined up with them on banning Syrian and Iraqi refugees from settling here

It wasn't a ban. Though at least this time she wasn't out on her own. As your link says, 46 other Democratic house members voted for it.

During her interview with CNN, Gabbard claimed the US was funding terrorist groups by assisting Syrian rebels

and others have also expressed that view, as I detailed extensively in my post #8.

A lot of your criticism is based on association with bad people who have that view, but that doesn't really speak to the inherent legitimacy of that view.

And again, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about what we should do in Syria. Damned if I know. I'm just saying one can disagree with Gabbard's position and not automatically consider her to be an awful candidate, an apologist for dictators, a Putin stooge, or whatever else. Especially when (as again I showed in post #8) there is plenty of non right-wing support for her perspective, i.e. that it is basically impossible to help "just the good rebels" without aiding our enemies. Or that regime change policies tend to go awry more often than not.