MoDo Does Riyadh

New York Times diva Maureen Dowd is over in Saudi Arabia, and darned if she isn't charming all and sundry with her amusingly girlish impertinence. In today's column, Mo encounters a Saudi prince (what are the odds, eh?) who has a few choice words about Obama, and how he's all blah blah blah with no follow through.

Hmmm. When you're disappointing people across the civilizational divide, you know you're in trouble. (Then again, disppointment in Obama can also bring people together, viz the "tea-baggers.")

Anyway, since Mo's in Arabia, she's decided to sprinkle her column with some local lingo--"Inshallah" and the like; hey, when in Riyadh do as the Riyadhians do, right?

I especially liked this part, where the Saudi prince (the Wahhabi foreign minister) offers his insight into that Zionist situation: 

I asked Prince Saud if he thinks America has less influence over Israel than it used to.

“You’re asking me about something that has tickled our imagination,” he replied. “If the settlements are illegitimate, the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements. Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority. Now if it were somewhere else, in Burma or somewhere like that, hell would be raised.”

It’s probably a sign of progress that Prince Saud calls it “a border dispute.” Unless it’s just his understated way. He also refers to “the 9/11 incident” and alludes to the Holocaust obliquely as “World War II.”

Did he really say "tickled"? For some reason, the idea of a Wahhabi using the word "tickled" tickles me, as does Mo's notion that the rest of his palaver is "probably a sign of progess." Probably a sign of Mo's being "tickled" by close proximity to Saudi royalty, more like.