What’s wrong with this picture?

In a press conference, Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s top foreign policy advisor said

His government was disappointed that the only information it has received about possible Saudi terrorists inside Iraq was through media reports quoting American officials. – Associated Press story, August 28, 2003, printed in The Fresno Bee.

And “within hours of the AP interview”:

[T]he State Department responded with a statement that the Saudis would be best to air such grievances through diplomatic channels. – Associated Press story, August 28, 2003, printed in The Fresno Bee.

Why is it okay for the United States to air grievances about the Saudis’ supposed failure to secure a border only in the media (i.e., not through diplomatic channels), but the Saudis “would be best to air [their] grievances through diplomatic channels” and not through the media?

Isn’t it enough that the media in the United States seldom publishes what the Bush Administration doesn’t want to hear? Do they need to control it at the source as well?

And why do we castigate the Saudis for a supposed inability to control their borders when our own government 1) doesn’t or can’t control it from the side of the border that is in our newly-acquired colony, 2) doesn’t or can’t control the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, 3) doesn’t or can’t control the Canadian border so as to keep people from crossing into Seattle with explosives and, finally, 4) doesn’t or can’t control other entry points such that citizens of countries we’re busy appropriating cannot grab our airplanes from U.S. airports and blow up our buildings with them?