The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Spare (Me)

On the lighter side—errr, maybe I should have said light weight side, there's Harry Windsor's ('Prince Harry' of Meghan Markle fame) new "tell-all" book, Spare. I haven't read Spare, nor will I, but based on a cross section of reviews, Harry trashes his family (the British Royal fam), plays the victim, suggests that he's just looking for privacy, and otherwise asks us to believe he's just like the rest of us normals. Uh ... no.

To quote Adam Corolla: "Harry is to the Windsor family what Fredo was to the Corleones."

To be honest, the Windor family has it's flaws—to say the least. They are aristocrats of the highest order, no more in touch with normal people than Joe Biden is with the millions who flood across the southern border he allows to remain open. I understand that the Windsors are historical and social symbols in England, but their entire existence seems a bit of an anachronism in the 21st century.

But that doesn't excuse Harry's attempt at character assassination of his father and brother. Adam Corrolla continues his Godfather metaphor quoting Michael Corleone:

“Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever.” 

Michael understood the value of loyalty, just like he understood the code of omerta. And the Corleones knew how to enforce their distinctive Sicilian concept of honor, which the Windsors don’t understand, or else Harry would be taking a ride to the airport with Clemenza.

Ben Shapiro has a more serious take and accurately dissects Harry's work:

1/ What makes his memoir truly culturally seminal is the way in which it exposes the overt transformation of the goal of the Western leadership class from service to self-service.

2/ Harry is almost the Platonic ideal of the modern man: a beneficiary of a historic institution who decides that true heroism lies in destroying those institutions, all in the name of personal fulfillment. The end of his book is literally this: "You're free. Fly away." 

3/ All of this requires that Harry dump on King Charles and even more so, Prince William, who has accepted his role and responsibilities. He must paint William as cruel and heartless, which he does with alacrity - even though William has remained publicly silent.

4/ More than anything, what comes through in the memoir is that Harry is just not very bright -- and that he is indeed easily manipulated by Meghan Markle. He's so gullible that he insists twice in the book that Meghan never Googled him. Riiilight.

5/  One of the funniest sections of the book is where Meghan drops everything to jet-set off to Africa for a full week with Harry for a THIRD DATE. But she had no clue who he was. No idea at all. Didn't even Google him.

It's hard to take either Harry or Meghan seriously. Two enormously wealthy and privileged members of the elites who somehow try to convince us that they are victims of the notoriety they continue to seek and profit from. Oh well ...