And why do we care?
Much was made today on the upcoming visit of the Prince of Wales to the US for the first time after 9/11. The big "topic" was that the Prince intends to "advise" the US government that they should be more "tolerant" of Muslims. And I should care why? With all due deference and respect to my many British friends....1. We fought a war that we won a long time ago to not be governed by a monarchy.
2. The subjects of Great Britain long ago limited the role of the monarchy officially to ceremonial roles and the governance of The Church of England.
3. Very few people outside of Great Britain (and not all that many inside it) personally respects the man.
4. His own mother didn't show up to his wedding..... not because it was inconvenient. Even his own mother doesn't respect him and she may very well pass him up for his "birth right" to the throne. If she doesn't, some suspect that the House of Lords will.
5. The vast majority of people around the rational world have great respect for his mother.
not to mention.... Ladies please excuse the extreme maleness of this one, I was born with a Y chromosome and I cannot be held responsible....
6. While married to Diana he was voluntarily sleeping with Camilla. He is therefore, for the purpose of judgment by any rational male in the free world, certifiably insane.
And I am supposed to care about his opinion on anything why? This is a total non-story. If he really is pompous enough to come over the pond and try to tell President Bush how to do his job, a man that the elected leader of his own country publicly, whole-heartedly, and to his own political detriment, supports on the war on terror.... one has to believe that the Queen will be forced to do something that no mother in her right mind wants to do. If she is who many, including myself, believe that she is she will be forced to publicly humiliate her own son by denying him the throne.
The throne does not get into other nations politics. It is part of the deal the throne made to not be decimated when our friends in Great Britain decided that rule by the people was a hip idea (after we kicked their butts and proved it to be a good idea, sorry I couldn't resist).
I have great personal respect for the Queen. Part of the reason that I have that respect is that she would never travel abroad and tell other governments how to deal with serious threats to their own national security. Further, she has the judgment to realize that this country is the most tolerant country in the world when it comes to minority religions. Her embarrassment of a son probably does not realize this and I suspect that a majority of the citizens of this republic recognize him for what he is.... an embarrassment to his almost saintly mother..... and we care about as much what his opinions are as we care whether the 12 year old kid down the street has a girlfriend.
If the elected leader of the British people, in this case Tony Blair, wants to venture across the pond and give us advice on domestic, foreign, or security issues, we should listen. We should not defer to that advise as a reflex, but we should seriously consider the advice of the elected leader of one of our foremost allies. We should ignore Charles as the pompous idiot that he is, and feel sympathy for his mother and the terrible position that this embarrassment for a man has put her in.
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