I like Brian Whitaker. He is one of my favorite Western journalists who write on the Arab world. He has a great critique of the Arab Development Report, and of the Western exploitation of it. He also authored that famous article on MEMRI. I never met the man, but today was most disappointed to read his profile of King `Abdullah. But Brian: this piece does not measure up to your long record of first-rate articles on Middle East politics and society. It borders on the hagiographic. You did not cite one single Saudi or Arab critic of this king. And this "man-who-takes-his-religion-seriously" stuff is so overdone, and so based on the entourage of the king himself. And it is not true: the man smokes in private (against the rules of Wahhabiyyah), and lived a free life in Beirut and Europe before the assassination of King Faysal. He was a party regular in Beirut up until the civil-war. But he takes his religion seriously in one regard: to not violate the Islamic rule of no more than four wives, he always remains married to three women at a time so that the vacancy allows him "acquaintances" during his foreign travel.