His
Highness
His
Highness
By Joe Bob Briggs
February 14, 2002
I was just reading this amazing White House press release in which The Prez refers to the king of Jordan as "His Majesty" and "Your Highness." I read it three times because I couldn't believe it.
They have a whole transcript of their little public conversation. And "His Majesty King Abdullah II, King of the Hashemite Kingdom"--if we're gonna give his title, let's go whole hog with it--refers to The Prez only as "Sir," while The Prez says over and over again how "His Highness did this" and "Your Highness knows this" and "His Majesty is a friend whatever."
George Washington is rising up out of his Mount Vernon vault and tap-dancing across the Potomac.
Andrew Jackson is mutilating the earth with his saber while causing an earthquake in Middle Tennessee.
James K. Polk, my own ancestor, was a lousy president, but I know enough about him to know that he's cracking the marble on his crypt with a keening howl.
Look. Mister Prez. Please. The king of Jordan might be high and he might be majestic among the Hashemites, but as soon as he starts hanging out around here, he's Mr. Abdullah. One thing the Founding Fathers were sure of is that they got rid of all hereditary and artificial ranks. They wanted kings and noblemen to feel vaguely uncomfortable every time they set foot on these shores. And they thought that any American who would let the words "Your Majesty" or "Your Lordship" slip out of their throats deserved to choke on his own tongue and be tossed into republican purgatory until the toadyism could be beaten out of him. Washington himself had been an acquaintance of various noblemen who governed Virginia and even had business with Lord Baltimore himself, but after the peace the State Department was instructed to refer to visiting ambassadors as "sir," no matter what blue- blooded House of Lords lineage they claimed.
Now. I'm not surprised to see Americans kowtowing and flunkifying whenever somebody with a tricked-up title shows up. I was at a Hollywood party once when Fergie came in, and somebody introduced her as--horrors!--"Fergie." There was a bunch of whispering and tut-tutting, and the next time she offered her hand she was "The Duchess of York."
To her credit, she wasn't asking for this treatment. It's in the nature of dull-pated American climbers to run after every gigolo with a purple sash and a rusty medallion who claims a connection to the Kingdom of Navarre in exile. I've even seen American newspapers, for God's sake, refer to "Her Majesty the Queen," which is something that even most British newspapers won't do, and they especially don't do it for royalty of other countries. If the king of Sweden drops by, he's "the king of Sweden." Actually the movement to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords in England has never been stronger than it is today, but if they did get rid of kings and queens and noblemen, the people who would mourn the loudest about it are on this side of the pond. After all, there would be no more Princess Di's for us to moon over.
So, as I said, it doesn't surprise me that Wal-Mart bag checkers in Gentry, Arkansas, would curtsy and grovel if the Seventh Incandescent Lama of Bengal showed up in the parking lot. But this was the president. The guy who's always talking about "this great country of ours." I'm guessing here, but I would assume that when Bush goes to Jordan, the average Hashemite in Amman wouldn't bother to make up any official address for him. He would just go, "Hmmmm, there's that president guy." And the Hashemite is an actual subject. He's in subjection to a king. Who looks sillier, the guy who's in subjection but doesn't show allegiance to any other ruler--which is 99 per cent of the world- -or people who are not in subjection who run around searching for princes to subject themselves to?
The way it's supposed to work is that every county clerk, governor, Congressional hysteric and disgrunted postal worker is positioned a little lower than me. That includes the president, who has to earn his capital "P" daily as well as his right to be listened to at all. Whenever I read articles about "respect for the office," I think of hordes kneeling before an empty marble cubicle, like Tibetans waiting for the next incarnation of a spirit. I own the office. I own all the paper clips in the office. Politically the temporary occupant is in all respects a servant of My Lordship. At the very least I own 1 share of a company that's been capitalized at 270 million, and not a single one of us stockholders should care one whit who the president is unless he's producing a profit and making us feel secure.
But the American population as a whole cries out for servitude. They're not too comfortable with the idea of being led by their political inferiors. They prefer some form of man- worship. They don't particularly care for the privilege of keeping track of the servants, and so instead they insist on pomp and ceremony even in a nation founded on the notion that all pomp and ceremony should cease. I even notice it among that most cynical lot, the journalists. They stir to their feet when "Hail To the Chief" is played, right along with everyone else. "Hail" is not really a good word. You won't find it in The Federalist Papers. You will find it used from time to time in Germany, where it translates as "Heil."
I have a friend who once visited an Orthodox monastery on a Greek island where, in order to be led up the steps to the chapel and visiting area, each visitor was required to kiss an icon. Being a devout Protestant, he refused to kiss the icon. It threw everyone into a tizzy, both the waiting tourists and the black- cloaked potentates of the place. Negotiations were held. Pleas were made. I suppose that, if my friend had been a little less secure in his beliefs, some compromise could have been reached. He could have placed a handkerchief over his lips and brushed the icon without it touching his skin. But it wasn't the form of the ceremony that bothered him. It was the fact that, by assenting to it, he was assenting to everything it stood for and denying his own relationship to God.
When The Prez says "Your Highness," he assents to everything the title stands for. If he's gonna call this "the greatest country in the world," he oughta find out how it got that way.
Joe Bob Briggs writes a number of columns for UPI and may be contacted at joebob@upi.com or through his website at www.joebobbriggs.com. Snail mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221.
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