Prince Philip: Appalling or Amusing?

Most leaders avoid political incorrectness like the plague, and when they do commit a blunder, they bend over backward to apologize. Not so Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (also known as "Duke of Hazard"), who is famous (or infamous) for saying the very things nobody dares say and offending people at every turn. Is Queen Elizabeth's husband rude, or refreshing, or both?

On June 16, former Massachusetts governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney cracked a joke during one of his campaign appearances.

"I should tell my story," he said at a meeting with voters in Tampa, Florida. "I'm also unemployed."

"I'm networking," he told one of the men who asked if he was on LinkedIn. "I have my sight on a particular job."

Not a good joke when you're worth over $200 million and talking to unemployed people.

To save his campaign, Romney had a lot of explaining to do. His excuse, that "self-deprecating humor is a part of who I am," did not help. 

Prince Philip, who turned 90 the week before Romney's faux-pas, has no such worries. He regularly delights and appalls the United Kingdom with his impolitic remarks.

In an age when every gaffe by every public personality seems to call for a self-flagellating apology, some say it is refreshing to have an all-purpose offender at the top (see video).

On a trip to Australia, the prince asked an Aboriginal leader, "Do you still throw spears at each other"?

When a reporter told him that his remark had offended some sensibilities, he growled, "The trouble with you lot is that you've got a total absence of humor."

Philip, who seems to despise speaking to the media, recently made a rare move: He agreed to collaborate on a TV documentary about his life.

The word "collaborate" might be a reach though.

When the unlucky interviewer mentioned an award Philip had received from The Oldie magazine, he got a testy response. "Well, so what?" the prince barked. "You just get old."

Asked if it had been hard to give up his naval career when his wife became queen, Philip snorted, "How long is a piece of string?"

Perhaps a 90-year-old should be forgiven for being a grumpy old man.

And perhaps the prince comes from a generation inspired by Winston Churchill, who could still get away with calling Mahatma Gandhi "that little naked man" and who thought nothing of carving up Britain's colonies into countries like Iraq.

Perhaps this mind-set led Philip to ask a Sottish driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass the test?"

Some admire Philip for his lack of decorum. British prime minister David Cameron recently praised the duke for his "unique turn of phrase."

Not all agree. The Independent columnist Johann Hari said there was little to laugh at.

"If you gave my dad a job from which he could not be sacked and a massive palace in which to live," Mr. Hari said, "he'd be a symbol of continuity, too."

What do you think? Is Prince Philip rude or refreshing? Should leaders be politically correct or incorrect? I look forward to reading you on http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.

P.S. To read more about Prince Philip's testy turns of phrases, check out "Duke of Hazard: The Wit and Wisdom of Prince Philip" by Phil Dampier. To learn more about how leaders communicate, check out my book "Communicate or Die."