Queen Elizabeth should be used to Gaffes-Her hubby is quite an expert with "gaffes" (racist ones)

[Reterr]

Look, I agree that Bush is an uncouth, disgusting, clueless swine. But if we are wringing our hands and beating our breasts over his "gaffe" with the "queen", it should be remembered that her husband has said a lot worse. She and Bush deserve each other.
Its amazing how much we are eager to forget in our desire to kiss the dust beneath the feet of the "royals". Thats quite a nice collection of little racist remarks he has there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/features/2003/11/queens_visit/prince_philip_gaffes.shtml

Speaking to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?"

To an Australian Aborigine during a visit in March 2002: "Still throwing spears?"

On cuisine in 1966: "British women can't cook."

During the 1981 recession: "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."

Sharing a joke with a blind, wheelchair-bound girl with a guide-dog: "Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?"

Commenting on modern stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: "We didn't have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking 'Are you all right? Are you sure you don't have a ghastly problem?' "

Responding to calls for a firearm ban after the Dunblane shooting: "If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?"

Referring to an old-fashioned fusebox in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999: "It looks as if it was put in by an Indian."

Referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who failed to recognise him in 1997: "Bloody silly fool!"

Talking to young deaf people in Cardiff about the school's steel band: "Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf."

During a 1984 visit to Kenya, he's presented with a small gift from a native woman: "You are a woman, aren't you?"

Accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: "Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species in the world."

When asked to stroke a Koala bear in Australia in 1992: "Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease."

Speaking to a Briton in Budapest in 1993: "You can't have been here long, you haven't got a pot belly!"

Speaking to an islander in the Cayman Islands in 1994: "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?"

Speaking to a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"

At a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting: "If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

Pointing at 14-year-old Shahin Ullah during a visit to a London youth club: "He looks as if he is on drugs!"

[GregD]

1. No handwringing here

Did you actually expect junior to make it through her visit? I certainly didn't. I was not a matter of "IF" so much as *WHAT*.

[renate]

2. I know another one from memory

...from a biography of the Queen that I read years ago.

He was in Holland, being driven somewhere from the airport, not realizing that his Dutch driver understood English, and he was looking out at the crowds and said "What a po-faced lot these Dutch are."

I like Elizabeth very much and to some extent Anne (rude but she works hard), and some of the queen's cousins are okay. But I have never ever liked Philip and I've always felt sorry for her. Talk about someone who could have married anybody she wanted, and she got him.

[melody]

3. Well, he did deign to allow a friend of mine to use his anointed public bathroom stall

My friend was appearing at a theatre that Phil was visiting. They had selected one of the public commodes and placed
a velvet surface over the toilet seat (no, I'm not joking), for only the Big Guy to use. Well, my friend had to go but
badly and ran in at intermission where the only available commode was Phil's velvet throne. The Royal handler tried to
block my friend from entering it but old Phil said, "Don't be ridiculous, let the man use it." Gosh, what a guy.

Wish is how I found out about the velvet, um, surface.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Phil's about 85 years old and of his generation. W should know better. nt

[Reterr]

8. He has had quite enough time to learn

Given that primary function of these people seems to be "diplomacy". He has had a better education than most people of his generation. Many of my favorite professors in grad school were British and in there late seventies. They didn't seem like uncouth, racist morons.
Phil is better than Bush no question-as far as I know he hasn't started a war based on lies and he is a conservationist but I don't have any illusions about the manners of these people.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Agree. But their off-the-record comments weren't reported 24/7 by the global press.

they probably also did not speak to you as they did their cronies.

[Solly Mack]

5. Is that the royal we? Because "we" don't

[spoony]

6. "You managed not to get eaten then?"

Sorry, but that's funny. :D

[Reterr]

7. But not quite as much as his zinger

"you will become slitty-eyed if you hang out in China too long" or whatever.

The guy is a real diplomat. That must be the class the British royals have that everyone keeps talking about.