Rhymes With "Butter"

In the same stream-of-conscious monologue in which Obama expressed dismay over the paucity of technological geegaws in the White House, he mentioned his enthusiasm for a "reform"-minded oily emirate. Barry Rubin picks it up from there:

Qatar is now supplying weapons to the Libyan rebels. Qatar?

Recently, President Barack H. Obama (the “H” is silent) met the emir of Qatar. Here’s what he said:

“I had the emir of Qatar come by the Oval Office today. Pretty influential guy. He is a big booster, big promoter of democracy all through the Middle East. Reform, reform, reform. Now he himself is not reforming significantly. There’s no big move toward democracy in Qatar. But you know part of the reason is the per capita income of Qatar is $145k a year. That will dampen a lot of conflict.”

But what if Qatar is not exporting “reform, reform, reform” but rather Islamism, Islamism, Islamism? Thus, Obama’s bemusement about Qatar’s hypocrisy is correct but he’s misunderstanding wherein the hypocrisy lays...

Might we say that Obama has "misunderestimated" (I've always loved that portmanteau) the oily ones?

Update: Cliff Kincaid writes:

President Obama on Thursday hosted Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar, otherwise known as the Boss of Al-Jazeera, for a meeting in the Oval Office. Obama called him “Your Highness” and “His Highness,” even though the Emir dropped his robes of royalty for a business suit. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani financially sponsors Al-Jazeera and its most famous personality, anti-American and anti-Semitic cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has just returned to Egypt from Qatar to supervise the transformation of that one-time U.S. ally into an Islamic state...

Hope 'n' change, Islamist-style.