On Constantine II, William F. Buckley Jr., Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a heroic teacher, and more
A headline, from January 13: “Constantine II, the Last King of Greece, Dies at 82.” The subheading read, “An Olympic medalist, he was popular when he took the throne in 1964. But his efforts to intervene in Greek politics led to a coup and his ouster.” For this obit, go here.
Constantine II was a guest at a National Review editorial dinner one night. Also at Bill Buckley’s table on that occasion were two major journalists: A. M. “Abe” Rosenthal, who had edited the New York Times, and Osborn “Oz” Elliott, who had edited Newsweek.
The people you met at Bill Buckley’s table. His interests were wide-ranging, and his appetite for people was almost unlimited. In his friendships, he was extraordinarily ecumenical.
Chez Buckley, I once chatted with Kitty Carlisle Hart. When I mentioned this to someone later — someone very knowledgeable about musical theater — he said, “Do you realize you talked with someone to whom George Gershwin proposed marriage?”
Constantine II brought along with him one of his sons, Pavlos, the crown prince. He introduced himself to each of us — very warmly — as “Prince Pavlos.” Dusty Rhodes and I got a kick out of that. Not every day does someone say to you, “Hello, I’m Prince [So-and-so].”
Of course, we had a pop star who was merely “Prince.” And the Detroit Tigers had a first baseman named “Prince Fielder.”
He was absurdly good-looking, Prince Pavlos. I said to Pat Buckley, “Think he has any problem scaring up a date on Friday night?” We had a laugh over that.
King Constantine, I engaged on two subjects. The first was the Athens Olympics, upcoming in 2004. (Constantine won a gold medal in sailing at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.) I can’t remember what he said, I’m sorry to say. I can’t remember precisely what I asked.
I also asked him about the Elgin Marbles, in the British Museum. Should they be repatriated to Greece? Yes, said Constantine. Any Greek patriot would, I imagine. I was on the other side — the stay-at-the-British-Museum side. But I could give him that one, you know?
At least once, Bill Buckley used the word “anthologizable.” I have used it ever since. A week or two ago, Daniel Hannan published an essay that is anthologizable. It is about the Elgin Marbles. Also about nationalism, universality, culture, economics, and other things. (All in one brief essay, yes.)
Hannan begins,
The British Museum was the first public institution to use the prefix “British”. Yet it never saw its vocation as national. It was conceived from the off as encyclopaedic, a place to display curios from every culture and continent.
And,
This universalism was more unusual than you might think. Visit the national museums in Budapest, Copenhagen or Prague and you will find institutions established to tell the story of a particular nation. Newer foundations are often even more targeted in their ethnic identitarianism.
Yup. Hannan quotes a former director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor: “The museum remains a unique repository of the achievements of human endeavour, and there is no culture, past or present, that is not represented within its walls. It is truly the memory of mankind.”
There is a lot to ponder here.
• No single article can capture what has become of the Republican Party — but this one comes as close as any can. By Jonathan Swan and Catie Edmondson of the New York Times, it’s headed, “How Kevin McCarthy Forged an Ironclad Bond With Marjorie Taylor Greene.” Historians may well want to consult it.
The opening:
Days after he won his gavel in a protracted fight with hard-right Republicans, Speaker Kevin McCarthy gushed to a friend about the ironclad bond he had developed with an unlikely ally in his battle for political survival, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
“I will never leave that woman,” Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican, told the friend, who described the private conversation on the condition of anonymity. “I will always take care of her.”
I believe him (for once).
Last Sunday, Michael McCaul, the Republican congressman from Texas, appeared on one of the talk shows. He used to chair the Homeland Security Committee. Now he is chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. Meanwhile, Greene has been appointed to the Homeland Security Committee. As recently as 2018, she was trafficking in QAnon theories about 9/11 and other important matters.
Asked about this, McCaul said, “9/11 was not a hoax. It was carried out by al-Qaeda.” About Greene, he said, “I will tell you, she has matured. I think she realizes she doesn’t know everything and she wants to learn and become, I think, more of a team player. I think it’s incumbent upon more senior members — look, she’s a member of Congress — to try to bring her in and try to educate her that these theories that she has are not accurate.”
Greene is one representative from Georgia. But she is also representative of today’s Republican Party broadly. Certainly more than George W. Bush or Mitt Romney is. (They were GOP presidential nominees not long ago. So was the late John McCain.) More than Mitch McConnell is (or Mitch Daniels).
The GOP was the party of Goldwater and Reagan. Greene and her cohort are a world away from them. Liz Cheney is a classic Reagan conservative. Speaker McCarthy fundraised against her. He has elevated Greene. Whereas Cheney is intolerable to him, George Santos, that spectacular liar and fraud, is not, apparently.
You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. There has been a hurricane on the right for years.
Recently, Mona Charen had a column titled “The Normalization of Marjorie Taylor Greene.” “Normalization” is the word, or “mainstreaming.” The populist Right, or the Fox News Right, or the MTG Right, has won.
Who can gainsay it?
• Some news out of Afghanistan — not surprising, but sickening nonetheless, and something to face: “Former Afghan Lawmaker Shot Dead at Her Home in Kabul.” Mursal Nabizada “was one of a few female parliamentarians who remained in the country after the Western-backed government collapsed and the Taliban seized power.” (Article here.)
On Twitter, Shabnam Nasimi, who once worked in the Afghan government, shared this:
In Afghanistan, now even the female mannequins’ faces must be covered.
The Taliban have ordered all shopkeepers to either behead female mannequins or cover their faces.
This is symbol of the Taliban’s treatment of women in Afghanistan. Haunting.
(Go here.)
To cover or behead — it’s not true that time brings progress. That centuries bring progress. Only progress does. There is such a thing as regress, for which the evidence is all too ample.
• I would like to praise the name of Abby Zwerner, a first-grade teacher in Newport News, Va. She was shot by one of her students but has survived. As the Associated Press reports, the police chief “hailed Zwerner as a hero for quickly hustling her students out of the classroom after she was shot. He said surveillance video shows she was the last person to leave her classroom.”
What a woman.
• A month or two back, I had an essay titled “‘The People,’ They Say.” It was on the use of language in our politics: particularly “the people,” “the elites,” and “the workers.” This week, I saw a report from CNN, headed, “Biden and advisers are on public lockdown over documents probe but are betting political furor will blow over.” The article says, “In interviews with CNN, people around the president talk about the ‘DC elite’ making ‘DC noise.’” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same old sh . . ., I mean “story.”
• “Gina Lollobrigida, Movie Star and Sex Symbol, Is Dead at 95.” The obituarist, Anita Gates, says that Gina exuded “a wholesome lustiness.” Perfect. Perfectly phrased.
• A couple of music reviews? This one is of a concert by the New York Philharmonic. And this one is of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Onstage: Dialogues of the Carmelites, by Poulenc.
• Manhattan Beach, Calif. — part of Greater Los Angeles — is named after the borough of New York City. The California town’s population is about 35,000; the borough’s population is about 1.7 million. But there is a bond between the town and the borough.
Last week, I happened upon the fire department of Manhattan Beach. Standing outside is a structure, a kind of sculpture, representing the Twin Towers:
There are also two beams, recovered from the towers themselves:
Thank you for joining me today, my friends. I’ll see you soon.
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