Elizabeth II leaves a longing in her wake

Washington Times ^ | 5-9-07 | Jennifer Harper

[JZelle]

Americans got the royal treatment for 144 hours, give or take a few minutes. But it's all over. Queen Elizabeth II is gone, along with her beribboned hats, sensible pumps and kindly civility that commanded the attention of 700 dithering journalists, the White House and the citizenry itself.

Our nation will never have a queen. But we liked this one just fine. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released yesterday found that eight of 10 of us favor the British monarch -- more than British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who garnered 70 percent, and Prince Charles at 62 percent. The survey of 1,028 adults also revealed that 41 percent of us thought we'd be better off with a royal family.

Still, there was an awful lot of telltale hubbub over curtsying and protocol during the six-day visit, which ended as the queen thundered out of Andrews Air Force Base last night aboard a custom jet, accompanied by three tons of luggage and 35 attendants.

"This is no simple flash-in-the-pan celebrity watch. Americans are drawn to the queen's calm demeanor and her basic etiquette -- respect, consideration, honesty," said manners maven Peggy Post, spokeswoman of the Vermont-based Emily Post Institute.

[ReignOfError]

I certainly would be horrified at the idea of a royal family here--my word, we're close enough with the Clintons, Kennedys, and Bushes!

Trivia pop quiz.
Q: When was the last election with neither a Bush nor a Clinton on the national ballot?
A: 1976. I was in the first grade.

Americans say they hate political dynasties, but aside from the Kennedys and Bushes -- and the Clintons, who are johnny-come-latelys by comparison -- how about the Tafts of Ohio? The Aldrich/Rockefeller line has had folks in elected office continuously since the civil war.

Let's face it, tourists don't go to the UK for the skiing, beaches, or food; they go for history, castles, great gardens, and the chance to see the people who made all of the preceding. In the long run the royals are a good investment, silly as they may be sometimes, and the British people know that.

Agree. They also have a great morale value -- they've been a tabloid embarrassment in recent years, but during World War II, the royals' decision to remain in London helped rally the population. Queen Elizabeth is most familiar to us as a dignified, if frumpy, old lady, but during the war Princess Elizabeth was a daring young beauty who went around the country assisting in relief work and -- unprecedented for royal women at the time -- drove her own Jeep. Prince Andrew servd in the Falklands. And now Harry might be on his way to Iraq.

But more than the individual personalities, the persistence of the royal family feeds the sense that there will always be an England where England ought to be. Britain spent a third of its national wealth fighting World War II. It lost the Empire. The Brits take a great deal of pride in their legacy, most of it justifiable, and the royals are a visible, high-profile embodiment of that legacy.

[Mr. Lucky]

Bingo!

[Spiff]

Aren't they why America was started in the first place? The part about 41% wanting royalty here really scares me.

Are Minnie and Mickey Mouse going to visit the White House next and get a state dinner with curtsying and all that crap? I mean, they "rule" the Magic Kingdom just as much as the "royals" rule the United Kingdom. As long as we're getting all dressed up and pretending here...

[Pharmboy]

I’ll make sure my Blazer has a full tank of gas and is ready to go help spread the alarm...

[Badeye]

We call Krauthammer ‘the brainpan’ in my house...(chuckle)

[MagnoliaMS]

Our nation will never have a queen.

Well, we already have one who thinks she is the queen. Two, actually. Pelosi AND Hillary.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The monarch in and of itself is not the reason for the Revolutionary War.

Correct. It was a war against Parliament more than anything else. The monarchy provided a good excuse. King George was a certifiable kook.

The English could have wiped the colonists out. They were too busy worrying about France and Russia.

[dsutah]

So, all of these things are the measure you use for conservatism? I’m not sure you and I are looking at the same standards of conservatism. All the standards you listed are very important, yes, but are they the only standards? The tax cuts he put in are good aren’t they?

Making sure the military members have what they need (spending for strong defense), conservative judges, getting us out of Kyoto, getting us out of world court system, veto of partial-birth abortion, among other points, he has done. Aren’t these items conservative anymore? You do realize that some of these items are supported by liberals also, do you?

I have already seen evidence he has done a lot of these things, and is working on others. Nothing you could say can convince me that he is not at least mostly conservative. People can decide whether he is doing everything to their satisfaction.

I’m not going to convince you to agree with me on all things conservative. Even a liberal can be for a border wall. There is no such thing as a perfect, pure, conservative leader. Not even Ronald Reagan was flawlessly conservative on everything. He was a mostly good, strong conservative leader, but not perfect. He was a practical conservative, and so is GWB! And that’s the way I look at it.

[x]

Don't quite get the "longing" thing.

Did Liz visit a men's prison or something?

[Barney Gumble]

The tax cuts were great, but they expire in three years. He needed to agree to the expiration dates in 2001 because the Senate was Dems. But... there was no revision to make the permanent in 2004-2006. Leadership could have gotten us there. Instead if a Democrat gets elected in 2008, taxes will go up and the Dems won’t even have to raise taxes. They’ll just let the cuts expire.

Conservative justices weren’t without a fight. We were already out of Kyoto. It was already killed when the Senate voted 95-0 against it (including Ted ‘hiccup’ Kennedy).

Non-military discretionary spending is at an all-time high. He signed the campaign finance “reform” even though he said he thought it was unconstitutitonal (what was he sworn to uphold?). There’s a flood of illegal and he chastises the Minutemen...calling them vigalantes?

Bush has done some good, but he’s been a big disappointment. I don’t regret my votes as he is better than Gore or Heinz, but he is much closer to the politics of his father than the politics of Reagan (which he was purported to be).

[NZerFromHK]

I think our national values somewhat diverge. Most of your countrymen view them as useless spoiled brats put in there for tourist money. To us they are part of the institution: her portrait appears on our coins and on the walls of high-ranking elected officials’ offices, and in our legal system we swear oaths and/or affirmations in her name, and all criminal cases are fought in the name of “Regina vs [defendant]”.

Much of New Zealand’s current constitutional arrangements will have no meaning if the Queen’s name is removed. And the Queen herself in fact has a lot of informal powers to give advices and warnings to the Prime Ministers (primarily Britain, but also of Commonwealth Realms).

In contrast, you have gone down a different path since the US Revolutionary War (or what we would call the US War of Independence) where the institution is not built around a monarchy. In fact if I have to digest, I’m quite sure the US Founding Fathers have considered the possibility of how the modern Westminster system will come into being and they rejected the system.

I’m not a monarchist myself, but I can see why many of my fellow New Zealanders remain attached to it.