King Abdullah II on the Daily Show

[Hash]

Watching it right now. Looks like a decent guy.

He puts on a whole show to appear as a nice, gentle, good guy, but he really isn't a good guy even if he might be on the good side and even if he's Mother Theresa compared to some of his neighbors.

[Hash]

Well, yeah, he's preferable to a nutjob regime; he's not a really 'bad guy' (and sure, I'll give him benefit of the doubt of his recent reforms/liberalization) but it's still fairly hypocritical for him to heap praise on democracy and talk about in such great terms when he's at the helm of a relatively oppressive regime which restricts press freedoms, civil liberties, political rights and so forth. I remember that when I went to Jordan, behind closed doors, the facade of "the King is great" quickly turned into a string of complaints about him - notably the fact that he's a gambler who lost money one time, his wife getting face lifts, putting up some massively huge flag (which, iirc, was made out of silk) all while the country is one of the poorest in the region and the fact that it is a fairly police state regime. His whole gang still has the hand in the jelly.