Al Gore is far from unusual in taking money from the Saudis and echoing their propaganda. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Back in August 2002, a congressional delegation was traveling around Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 al Qaeda hijackers who less than a year earlier had launched the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

On one leg of the trip, in a big, white embassy van, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, a former FBI agent, turned to the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Robert Jordan. He asked Jordan, in light of how the Sept. 11 attacks had revealed the Saudis' role in nurturing al Qaeda—connected charities and religious schools, whether Jordan, a big—time Houston oil and gas lawyer, would be the first U.S. ambassador to not go to work for the Saudis after leaving his post.

Jordan, who had George W. Bush as a client before he went to the White House, considered Rogers' question for a moment, and then politely declined to "take the pledge," according to a witness who recalled the episode.

A billion or two dollars a year is pin money for the oil potentates. That kind of money can buy a lot of friends in Washington, DC.