What changed is he's a Washington Post reporter.

The Saudis control the Arabian press. Erdogan controls the Turkish press. But the Washington Post's masthead is "Democracy Dies in Darkness" and no matter how badly the Republicans wish it weren't so, they're a minority party in power and Trump himself is widely viewed in the press as a populist puppet of powerful foreign interests.

We make much of the Fourth Estate. How much they matter is up to question but how much they think they matter is not. Really, if the Washington Post had chosen to let this slide we probably wouldn't be talking about it. But since the Washington Post started barking about it, all the other dogs are barking about it and suddenly, the Fourth Estate is acting like a political power.

I don't think anything changed. I think MBS is a 33-year-old prince with a demonstrated skill at propaganda and intrigue but no tested skill at diplomacy and "murdering a journalist" is a diplomacy test, not a propaganda or intrigue test. I think MBS saw it as an intrigue test because he wanted to send a message to other dissidents ("you are never beyond our reach") but didn't consider that not all the factors of the equation were under his control. The world has been low-level annoyed at Saudi Arabia for decades and irritated at MBS in particular; bringin' a bonesaw to a marriage fight turned out to be the spark the conflagration needed.