The Obama administration has intervened to quash a civil suit filed against Saudi Arabia by survivors and family members of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The suit seeks to hold the Saudi royal family liable, charging that it provided financial and other support to Al Qaeda and was thereby complicit in the hijack bombings that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington DC.

http://tinyurl.com/n6dzmk

I agree with Texas Playwright that it all boils down to oil, for which we have a huge appetite. Granted, Saudi Arabia isn’t our only supplier but they’re a major player. Look at your local papers and see who the big advertizers are — auto dealerships as well as home sellers (often in suburban or even exurban locations which can’t exist without auto-dependency). Pay attention to how many car commercials you see on TV or hear on the radio. These advertizers are major sources of revenue for the media, who aren’t inclined to bite the hand that feeds them. And that hand depends on oil.

This is just as big a myth as his mythological oratorical skills. Any man who lashes out the way he does on a regular basis; who plays “99 problems…” during the primary, or “Addicted to Love” following President Clinton’s convention speech; or who goes on a European rock tour while just a candidate; or who flips the bird on the sly; or who relies so heavily on sexism, racism, and ageism to get his way, has none of those qualities. He is actually immature, vindictive, and easily knocked off kilter.

Oh, I take it back, he is controlled–we just don’t know by whom, yet.

Still looking for evidence that she/he actually love this country…..

I think the connections that the Bush family and B0 have to the Saudi’s are very interesting. I just keep wondering who really runs our country these days. It’s not “We the People,” that’s for sure.

So Obama’s not going to “change” our relationship with the Saudis no matter how they behave?

Now that’s “change” you can believe in – NOT.

Tough times, tough people. We can do it.

i for one want to see the media held accountable for their lack of integrity. and it follows the politicans as well. it does my heart good to see obama’s numbers continue to fall no matter how the suckup media tries to play it.

and abc? uggg! i didn’t watch the anyway!

More on the Saudi lobby:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/jrm-pubnote-20070417

The Saudi post-9/11 PR blitz:

“The Saudis were the first to get this new era of PR,” says Kevin McCauley, editor of O’Dwyer’s Public Relations,the leading trade publication covering the PR industry. Shortly after 9/11, Saudi Arabia entered into a $14 million-a-year contract with Qorvis, a Washington PR firm. Qorvis launched a TV campaign with ads on political talkshows featuring a procession of Saudi royals appearing alongside U.S. presidents, to highlight Riyadh as a closeally. Other TV spots, which ran in 14 American cities, touted the “shared values” of the United States and SaudiArabia. The firm also shuttled Saudi officials on whirlwind tours of major media outlets, and broadcast ads promoting the 9/11 Commission finding that there was “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institutionor senior Saudi officials individually funded [Al Qaeda]“–while omitting the report’s conclusion that “Saudi Arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism.” The PR blitz helped reduce the number of anti-Saudi articles and speeches, says McCauley, which allowed the Bush administration to keep ties to the kingdom close.

2. The Nico Pitney story is beyond ridiculous and those of you who are getting your knickers in a twist need to have a glass of water or something. Here is Nico’s question:

“Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the demonstrators there?”

Obama answered:

“We didn’t have international observers on the ground, we can’t say definitely what happened at polling places. What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves … consider this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There are significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.”

The rule of question planting is that you make the query an obvious softball (see Gannon, Jeff) that the President or whomever can hit out of the park. The last thing those who choose the ringer want is for their boss to dodge a question, which is what Obama did.

Dana Milbank is dead wrong and should direct his umbrage at his colleagues in the DC press corps, which of course will never happen.