MoDo’s Camels and Ponies
Having MoDo vouch for the “sangfroid” of Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir (who, she notes, once saved her from being punished by Saudi religious police for dressing inappropriately) is about as amusing as having David Ignatius announce the Scary Iran Plot must be true because the CIA is involved.
Jubeir stayed cool even when American officials informed him several months ago about the latest stunning chapter in the Saudi Arabia-versus-Iran Great Game for supremacy in the Middle East: an outlandish plot by an Iranian-American used-car dealer in Texas who said his cousin was a senior member of the Iranian Quds Force.
MoDo’s piece seems to do little but foster the illusion that a real plot had developed, as she describes al-Jubeir straining in secret to hide the news that a DEA Narc completely directed by the US government proposed bombing his favorite restaurant.
He had to force himself to live a normal existence for months, not telling family or staff, until a criminal complaint was unveiled and the Texas car dealer was before a judge.
MoDo’s piece also allows al-Jubeir to rebut a detail about him that the US Government’s own plot has emphasized–that he practically lives at Cafe Milano.
Over lunch at the embassy in his first interview since then, he told me in his whispery voice that he was surprised the plotters had assumed he’d be hanging at modish restaurants. These days, the slender, smartly tailored ambassador is more of a nester, spending time with the twins and his 9-month-old son.
“I work so much, I enjoy sitting at home doing nothing,” said the diplomat with the rough commute — 12-hour flights to Riyadh several times a month.
No wonder al-Jubeir chose this–rather than an interview with a real journalist–to be his first interview after the revelation of the plot.
Though there is this close for the piece.
As I left, I asked the ambassador about the painting in his office of Arab tribesmen riding horses and camels.
“It’s artistic license,” he noted with amusement. “Camels don’t ride with horses. They ride separately. Horses go faster and camels go longer.”
It’s as if, in addition to countering the common knowledge he lives at Cafe Milano, al-Jubeir also wants people to know that both Arabian ponies and camels can survive by eating aspen leaves that grow connected at the root.
Thanks for reading MoDo so others don’t have to. So the ambassador is just a homebody, isn’t that sweet?
At Google, Dowd’s column would be called a sponsored link.
MoDo has never recovered from the vicarious thrill of writing about Bill Clinton’s sex life. Her stories about Bill’s knob were surprisingly considered front-page, award-winning news. She and her newspaper have gone downhill ever since.
Ms. Dowd is a never ending catfight with herself. Among the NYT’s perverse choice of writers to publish on its OpEd page, she vies with Tom Friedman for being unworthy; sadly for Times’ readers, David Brooks and Ross Douthat are even less worthy. Collectively, they condemn the entire section.
Gotta wonder if Maureen Dowd is as much of a IRL hosebag as she seems from her columns.
Isn’t there always a description of a cozy tête-à-tête with her – invariably male – subject?
In this piece, she encourages her reader to imagine how she repaid Adel al-Jubeir for saving her from the Mutawwa’s lash.
When he surely (quite reasonably) declined to avail himself of her feminine charms, she still probably felt that she owed him one. Hence this column.
And were was MoDo or her likes when our Bush-CIA thought police were going around engaging in human trafficking and buying people to run through for human experimentation at black sites and in concentrated population camps?
She thinks it took a long time for her Saudi pal to talk her out of trouble – how long did it take for Errachidi, Maher Arar, Murat Kurnaz, etc. – way too long for the Chinese Uighur who lost his mind at GITMO, after being sent by his mother to find his brother, way too long for Sheik Ibyn al-libi, way too … much to expect, that MoDo would write about anything not involving her and a playboy princeling.
BTW – now that Democrats are in power in the Exec branch and Senate, Democratic Senators on hugely important matters central to the heart of our nation are . . . still sending strongly worded letters – ok, a lot less strongly worded, but still, ya know, letters. At least they haven’t shown there hand so far as to reduce it all to a tweet.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/1011/13_Senators_take_detainee_issues_out_of_defense_bill.html?showall
*sigh*
And Schumer again proves what a worthless piece of nothingness he is.
Was it also al-Jubeir who rescued MoDo from the pesky blogger-photographer as she sat in the back row at the Prop 8 press conference in SF? Because THAT was some inappropriate dressing, if you ask me.
@Teddy Partridge: Yeah, I was gonna put that up. But I didn’t want to look at it again.
al-Jubeir also wants people to know that both Arabian ponies and camels can survive by eating aspen leaves that grow connected at the root.
Hahahaha! Also: MoDo: gross. I will never click through. Ever.