Who is David Kirkpatrick and where does he derive his "information" on Tunisia?

I don't know who he is.  But I will tell you this: in the entire article today about Tunisia and even about Arab reactions, he cited one--ONLY ONE--Arab source on Tunisia.  Here it goes:  "Still, many commentators around the Arab world wondered if it might be too soon to celebrate, given the continuing violence in Tunisia and the lack of an obvious leader. “We don’t know if the Tunisia of yesterday has opened up, or is about to plunge into a deep sea of the unknown and be added to the series of Arab disasters that don’t end,” Tarek al-Hamid wrote in Asharq al-Awsat, a paper with a Saudi owner. “No one will cry over Ben Ali, but the prayer is for Tunisia not to fall into a quagmire of crises with a bleak future.”"  Imagine a reporter on the Arab world who relies on the opinions and agenda of a chief propagandist for the House of Saud.  And notice that instead of saying that Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat is owned by Prince Salman and his sons, he merely said: "a paper with a Saudi owner" as if he is implying that it is an independent non-governmental newspaper.  Thirdly, his entire spiel about support for the Tunisian general by Tunisian on Facebook is absolute BS.  If anything, there is a lot of suspicion about the Army command by Tunisians on Facebook and Twitter.   Fourthly, of course, Saudi media are covering the Tunisian developments in a way that is MOST UNREPRESENTATIVE of Arab public opinion: they are stressing looting and chaos because they are the official ally of the dictator.