The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Duke and Duchess of Trash

Posted on | February 23, 2022 | Comments Off on The Duke and Duchess of Trash

Sometimes the algorithm turns up a headline that, while utterly silly, nevertheless gets your mind completely off-track:

One of Meghan Markle’s most iconic looks will be displayed in a British fashion museum.
The Fashion Museum announced Tuesday that the black silk Giorgio Armani dress that the Duchess of Sussex wore for her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey alongside Prince Harry has been named as its Dress of the Year 2021.
“It’s well known that members of the Royal family often use outfits to send a message through their choice of style, color or motif,” the museum said in a statement. “It was reported that the Duchess chose a dress with a lotus flower design because of the flower’s symbolic association with rebirth, self-regeneration and spiritual enlightenment, and its ability to flourish despite seemingly challenging conditions.”
The two-hour CBS special, which premiered in March 2021, drew an estimated 60 million viewers and aired in nearly 70 countries, with the Sussexes sending shockwaves through the royal family for some of the claims made about their experience in the U.K. . . .
For this year’s selection, editors from the bimonthly British style magazine Dazed chose the Duchess of Sussex’s Armani wrap dress. At the time of the interview, she was pregnant with daughter Lilibet Diana.
“We both latched upon Meghan and Harry’s now iconic interview with Oprah as the definitive anti-establishment moment that will forever endure in the British collective consciousness,” Dazed editors Ibrahim Kamara and Gareth Wrighton said in part.

Am I the only one who thinks that British royalty, of all people, should avoid having anti-establishment moments, “definitive” or otherwise?

Does anyone, on either side of the Atlantic, want members of the House of Windsor to be “anti-establishment”? Have these people given no thought whatsoever to what their status represents? I mean, perhaps Meghan Markle could be excused for the ignorant belief that a duchess is just another kind of realty-TV celebrity — England has duchesses like America has Kardashians — but how is it that Harry, not only royalty on his father’s side, but descended from the Spencers on his mother’s side, should have no sense of the appropriate dignity of British aristocracy?

These cast members of Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace (for such, evidently, is their conception of royal duty) have done real damage not only to their own reputations, but also to the honor of the nation they represent. To borrow the language of evangelical Christianity, a prince is the ultimate “servant leader,” who has inherited a duty to conduct himself in such a manner as to deserve the respect of his people.

To repeat what I said in January 2020:

Imagine going on TV to denounce your own grandmother as a racist. Now imagine being married to the kind of woman who thinks this threat of a “warts-and-all” interview with Oprah is a clever move. This is all on Harry, you see. As I always say when some man grumbles that his ex-wife is an evil crazy bitch, well, what does that say about you? A man who marries an evil crazy bitch is self-evidently lacking in good judgment. So it is not accurate to say the Duchess of Sussex is making a fool of Harry — he was already a fool.
As to the accusation of royal racism, Professor Reynolds is correct: “If you start with the assumption that charges of racism are usually self-serving twaddle, you’ll usually be right.” Beyond that, however, the very idea of royalty is inherently racist, since it assumes that some people are born with a hereditary superiority. It has always amused me how so many American liberals — especially women — who would never be caught in the same room with a right-winger (because we are all so “racist”), nevertheless often display a starstruck admiration for the British royals.

These two have become a permanent source of royal embarrassment:

Prince Harry “does not feel safe” bringing his children to the U.K. following the loss of his taxpayer funded police protection, his legal team told the High Court in London on Friday.
Speaking at a preliminary hearing to have the protection reinstated — which Prince Harry did not attend in person — the Duke of Sussex’s attorney Shaheed Fatima expressed Harry’s concerns over the security arrangements put in place when he and Meghan Markle stepped back from royal duties in January 2020.
Following their bombshell announcement, Harry and Meghan lost their public-funded protection in the U.K. and have privately paid for their own security in the U.S. They were also later told that they could not pay for U.K. police protection out of their own pockets.
This means that if the Duke and Duchess of Sussex return to the U.K. with son Archie Harrison, 2, and daughter Lilibet Diana, 8 months, they will not be entitled to state-funded protection and the deep level of security intelligence that comes with it. . . .

What a damned ingrate! First, he and his trashy wife go on worldwide TV to accuse his own grandmother of racism, and now — having “stepped back from royal duties” — he goes to court demanding that British taxpayers keep footing the bill for his security. Well, as bad as our own leadership caste is on this side of the pond, at least we have a chance to vote them out of office, instead of being saddled with a hereditary whiner like Harry to annoy us. Our independence is worth something, anyway.

Oh, wait — almost forgot — that Armani dress? $4,700. If either of my daughters should ever own a $4,700 Armani dress, I hope they wouldn’t wear it while complaining about what victims of injustice they are.




 

Category: Great Britain

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