"I'm Harry"

[edbermac]

When people are having a good time, you don't want to be the skunk in the garden. And this week, people were having such a good time at that big White House welcome for the Queen. The New York Times says her majesty was "making Americans go weak in the knees." Sometimes we colonials seem so dazzled by British royalty that I wonder if General Washington did defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown.

But a less playful thought also occurred to me watching the first and royal families all gussied up. I couldn't help but think of Prince Harry, the Queen's grandson, who is headed for Iraq with a cavalry regiment, even though he's a conspicuous target for assassination or kidnapping. There's angst in official circles that other members of his regiment will be put at graver risk because of his celebrity. So guess what his comrades -- his fellow soldiers -- are doing? Rather than petition the Queen to keep the young man home, they have gotten shirts printed up with the words across them: "I'm Harry." Marvelous, no? The commoners and the Prince are in this together: one for all and all for one. What a notion -- that war should be the great equalizer, that no one's son or daughter is privileged from duty or danger.

You have to wonder how the last four years might have been different if only our President had asked sacrifice from everyone. Instead, mostly folks from the working class and professional soldiers are doing the dying in Iraq, while the rich spend their tax cuts. War on the cheap, except for those fighting it.

Watching all the wrangling in Washington this week over timetables and exit strategies and benchmarks, it occurred to me that this travesty might end much more quickly if what is happening in Iraq were not just word-play to our leaders -- something others die for while officials talk, talk, and talk. Suppose the next time they pow-wow and palaver the President and Congress were asked to wear shirts with the words written across them, "I'm Harry."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/im-harry_b_48220.html

How about a shirt that reads "We're The Bush Twins"

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. If there is any "bond" between royalty and commoners, you can owe

it to the fact that England has already gone through the theocracy and feudalist bullshit which is dragging us down. In fact, Britain's programs are based more on socialism, than capitalism.

Imagine that.

[LostinVA]

2. What a nice gesture -- good for them!

[Nick at Noon]

3. I love the English people

But when they do things this stupid,  I begin to have doubts
about their intelligence.

I wonder if they have any idea just how little the Royal
family thinks of them ? 

[Nick at Noon]

4. Let me add this thought

For the past few months we've been reading about how terrible
it will be when Harry *finally* goes to Iraq.   My bet is that
Harry is already *in* Iraq -- at least for a brief and well
guarded stay to get his picture taken -- and the next thing we
will hear is that Harry is *back*!