Hypocrisy or ignorance?

Reuters photo by Kevin Lamarque via Dependable Renegade

Reuters photo by Larry Downing via Watertiger

Barry Lando at AlterNet writes:

To thank the Saudis for supporting the latest, feeble U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East, Bush is promising them 20 billion dollars in sophisticated weapons—including 121 million dollars worth of precision guided bombs.

...

Which brings us to another irony of the current Bush trip. A few days ago in Abu Dhabi, trying to whip up support for U.S. policy, he gave a speech condemning Iran and extolling the virtues of democracy from the cavernous marble auditorium of a 3 billion dollar gold plated hotel.

A strange choice of venue: the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai and the rest of the emirates give short shrift to democracy themselves.

What was this trip to the Middle East: a fashion show with Bush sending words down the runway that everyone could ooh and aah over but nobody was going to buy? In other words, a glitzy media event lacking in substance. [Sorry, couturiers of the world.]

Atrios summed it up thusly:

Spreading freedom by distributing high tech weapons to brutal oligarchies and dictatorships. It's the Bush way.

h/t to A. J. Rossmiller at Americablog.

UPDATE:
Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars pointed me to Newsweek's Michael Hirsh, who had this to say about the Preznit's trip:

A day after George W. Bush gave his big democracy speech and declared the opening of "a great new era … founded on the equality of all people"—a line he delivered at the astonishingly opulent Emirates Palace hotel, where most of the $2,450-a-night suites are reserved for visiting royals—the president flew to Saudi Arabia on Monday. There he planned to spend a day with King Abdullah at his ranch, where the monarch keeps 150 Arabian stallions for his pleasure, and thousands of goats and sheep "bred to feed the guests at the King's royal banquets," as the White House put it in the "press kit" it handed out to reporters on the eve of the president's eight-day Mideast tour. Bush was also expected to take time out to meet with a group of "Saudi entrepreneurs."

What could not be found on Bush's schedule was one Saudi dissident or political activist, much less a democrat. Just a day after his speech in Abu Dhabi—and three years after declaring in his second inaugural address that "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture"—the president made time for a tour of Saudi Arabia's National History Museum but not for a meeting with Fouad al-Farhan. Farhan, Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, was arrested in Jidda last month for daring to defend a group of Saudis who wanted to form a civil rights group. [emphasis mine]

Nothing Bush has ever done gives evidence that he believes in democracy.
--the BB