Prince Philip, lout and brute, Miss Venezuela gets a boob job, John Cusack, Bolshevik jerk, &c.

August 1, 2001 10:20 a.m.

don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with Prince Philip. Have you heard the latest? He asked a 13-year-old boy — one of his “subjects” — what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy replied, like so many boys, “An astronaut.” Whereupon the prince said, “Well, you’ll have to lose weight if you want to do that.”

Can you imagine? The husband of the queen telling a 13-year-old boy he was fat? The man is utterly uncivilized, without heart or decency. Later, the boy said to the press, “I didn’t feel too good about what he said. It hurt my feelings, but I tried to laugh it off by pretending he was only joking.” Of course he did. Most 13-year-olds would.

I read about this days ago, but my rage has barely abated. Conservatives, I know, are supposed to be a) defensive of the monarchy and b) scornful of tender sensitivities. I don’t give a rip. I would sock the old fool, Philip, in the face, if I could.

Over the years, it is true, some of his “gaffes” have been witty: not the remark about “slitty eyes” in Beijing, but such instances as that in 1995, when he asked a Scottish driving instructor, “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” And back in 1981, when his country was enduring a deep recession, he remarked, “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.”

But when a grown and respected man tells a 13-year-old kid he’s fat: Well, I’m not sure there’s anything worse you can do. As anyone with an ounce of meaningful human experience knows. An ounce.

Venezuela is the home of world beauty queens. The way Romania pumps out gymnasts, or Russia violinists (though when they thinned themselves of Jews, they hurt themselves here), Venezuela turns out Miss Worlds and Miss Universes. The country has some of the most beautiful women in the world; and they take their beauty seriously.

It was perturbing, therefore, to learn that the latest Miss Venezuela, going for the Miss World title, has been…enhanced. She has had a bit of “physical preparation,” as the seņorita herself has put it, including artificial breast implants, a nose job, and some “fat off the hips.” Yuck. How bad could she have looked before? She’s Miss Venezuela, for heaven’s sake. That’s like being the best speller among Vietnamese-American schoolkids.

If the Miss Venezuelas (Misses Venezuela?) can’t do it au naturel, they shouldn’t do it at all. They should step aside, and let the equally stunning — but very different — Miss Icelands shine.

I know I should always separate the “artistic” from the political: but I’m so sorry John Cusack is a Bolshevik jerk. I’ve always loved him.

Stick with entertainment for a second: The missus and I watched the other night King of the Hill, and I was shocked and delighted once again by its glorious anti-PC sensibility (I mean, “anti-political correctness,” not “anti-Parti Communiste,” for example, but isn’t that a neat coincidence?). The local schoolteacher is a fanatical environmentalist who indoctrinates his students, turning them against their parents and making them little green fascists (greenshirts?). This is just the way John Stossel reports it! And in a mock court — also a kangaroo court — environment-offending “defendants” have to swear on Harry Potter books, because, as one girl explains, “we’re not allowed to have the Bible in school.”

Yeah, I know it’s wrong to judge a TV show for its politics, or political undertones; and King of the Hill is a clear achievement, left-right aside. But still…it makes The West Wing slightly easier to swallow.

The compensating, avenging quality of Fox Television rests not only with its news.

Mark Steyn, in a recent column, gave me a flashback. He recounted the famous story told by David Frost, the veteran TV interviewer. Frost was doing his celebrated series of interviews with Richard Nixon, who said to him, before one taping — he must have been trying to make small talk, in his usual awkward way — “So, did you do any fornicating over the weekend?” I remember that, many years ago, I was watching one of the talk/variety shows, either Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin. I was about 13, I guess. Kristy McNichol — whom I adored — was “guest co-host,” and one of the guests was David Frost. He was not the first guest; there had been one on before him, probably some actor, and he was sitting on the couch (or whatever) with Kristy. So Frost tells this story, about what Nixon said. The audience, of course, gasps. And Kristy McNichol — who wasn’t much older than I was — leans over, with a quizzical expression, to that first guest, and whispers what apparently is a question; the guest whispers back a reply.

I assumed that Kristy was asking what “fornicating” meant; I was wondering to. I can’t remember how much later it was that I found out. I hope I went to the dictionary immediately (though I doubt it).

Strange story: both Frost’s and mine.

The United States is trying to have struck, from the big Anti-Racism Conference being staged by the U.N. in South Africa, the notion that Zionism equals racism. Actually — although this is surely wrong of me — I hope the old, noxious notion stays in. It would help to discredit an affair that must, for all the usual reasons, be discredited.

I understand that politicians make compromises, and sometimes drastic ones, and I long ago lost my innocence about politicians and principles. Still, there occasionally occurs something that delivers a shock. I am thinking now about Hillary Clinton’s extreme pro-Israel views, manifested in the Senate and in New York, the state she represents. Only two seconds ago, it seems, she was one of the most prominent pro-Arab, anti-Israel figures in the United States. There wasn’t much room between her and, say, Edward Said. And now she makes Ariel Sharon “look like a faggot” (to paraphrase Frank Rizzo). (It just came to mind: my apologies.)

As I say, I’m no naïf. But how can people effect such a jolting and speedy shift? Don’t they suffer whiplash? And why do others (i.e., the press and the public) let them get away with it?

If only Hillary Clinton could have run for the Senate from Dearborn, Mich., she could have stayed true to her “principles.”

A quick word about Bill: The other day, of course, he opened his post-presidential office in Harlem. He thereby conformed to his truest pattern: When he is in need of validation or consolation, he makes a beeline for black people. And they grant him a warm embrace.

You will recall that Clinton first wanted to place his office in Carnegie Hall Tower, one of the swankiest, priciest buildings in midtown Manhattan. But congressional Republicans, some of the public, and even the media squawked, and Clinton turned tail, announcing that he would move up north, to Harlem. This was the brainchild of Rep. Charlie Rangel, who also happens to be the guy who thought up Hillary for Senate (basically).

Rangel was on hand to greet and hail Clinton at the office-opening. This was an event staged like a campaign rally, reminding us that Clinton is still engaged in “the permanent campaign” — even after the presidency; even unto death, one presumes. Nothing in the man’s life can take place without political trappings and political purposes.

I saw a photo of him at Katharine Graham’s funeral, in the National Cathedral (where Woodrow Wilson is buried — he is the only president interred in Washington, D.C.). I thought: “He must have ideas of what he wants his funeral to be, the old rascal. He’s probably got it all planned out, or is considering the options — it will be the last campaign rally, presumably. And he will be revising, spinning, to the end.”

The office of the presidency is, to be sure, an immodest one — but that is why someone modest should fill it.

The other day, I was sitting around, lamenting Rudy Giuliani’s departure from the mayor’s office. All the good he has accomplished can be so easily reversed by a leftist Democrat. But here is Rudy’s greatest gift, even apart from the massive reduction in crime, the restoration of civilization to New York, and so on: He has forevermore put the lie to the assertion that New York City is ungovernable, that the city can never be safe, that it can never be healthy and decent, that it can never be a joy to live in. We now know better. Mayors and other politicians of the future might say, “There is nothing to be done. This is the way it must be, latterly. You will have to accept it.” And citizens will be able to say, in return: “No. You are wrong. Giuliani proved you wrong. We know what is possible. We have not forgotten.”

That’s what Giuliani has done.

May I tell you what is my favorite news photo of the recent period? It is the one that shows Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson strolling with Fidel Castro in Havana. The Iranian is wearing an imam’s garb, the Cuban is dressed in his fatigues. It is all so fitting — disgusting and perfect. Disgusting and perfect.

I have a little rule, which I will let you in on. I won’t — at least I try not to — refer to Castro as “Fidel.” This convention drives me crazy, and it drives many democratic Cubans crazy as well. The casual use of the first name masks the evil the man has done. It presents him as a friendly and mild character. We would never refer to Stalin as “Joe” (unless we were Harry Truman); and the world doesn’t call Pinochet “Augusto” (how about “Gus”?). I may not be able to do much, but at least I can refuse to call the tyrant of Cuba “Fidel.” That’s something.

Saddam Hussein, it is true, we call “Saddam.” How did that start? I always thought it was to distinguish him from King Hussein (who is a whole “nother” subject, as we say in my family). And do you remember how the first President Bush deliberately mispronounced that first name, saying “Sodom”? The boys in psy-ops apparently told him it would bug Hussein (I’m back on the Iraqi). I would call Saddam “Hussein,” but it’s too late for that, and would be confusing.

On the subject of appalling dictators: Did you hear that Kim Jong Il, oppressor of North Korea, is taking the train to Moscow, where he is to meet with Putin? The train! In 2001. From Pyongyang to Moscow! You think the tall-haired tyrant is skeered to fly? But then who, among the world’s journalists, will sit down and ask him?