I think where we disagree is in how much power Turkey has to play with. They spent half the cold war on the outs with Europe over Cyprus. They're currently trying to figure out if they wanna sidle up to the US or Russia. Erdogan isn't an "absolute monarch" - he's a nominally elected official who has rolled back democracy every chance he gets but he doesn't get to issue edicts the way the Saudis do.

As far as Saudi Arabia, they've belonged a lot more to the Republicans than the Democrats (especially since Carter let the Shah in back in '79). Bush-era Saudi Arabia might as well have been a Republican protectorate. Democrats made much of the fact that 15 of 19 9-11 hijackers were Saudi and Michael Moore pointed out in Fahrenheit 911 that the only guys in the sky on September 7 were the bin Laden family and their coterie. As such the Saudis are an excellent bete noire for Democratic foreign policy expression.

The Turks basically had to own up to bugging the Saudi embassy, which everybody pretty much knew they did. By letting things trickle out the way they have people are pretty much okay with the Turks bugging embassies. It took 'em a while to get there tho.