MSNBC’s Stengel: U.S. Interest in Queen Elizabeth Shows ‘Weakness in the American Character’

MSNBC political analyst Richard Stengel said Thursday on “Deadline” that the news coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death revealed a “weakness in the American character that still yearns for that era of hereditary privilege.”

Stengel said, “The special relationship phrase was really coined by the British because they wanted desperately to be close to America. There were books how Winston Churchill was desperate to get FDR after the war.”

He added, “I’m going to be the skunk at the garden party today, to use a British expression, and I also would pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth for her unrivaled service and dedication, but it was her great, great-great-great-grandfather George III who we rebelled from to start the United States of America.”

He continued, “You played a clip of her at Cape Town in 1947 in South Africa. That was the year Apartheid took effect in South Africa. That was something British colonialism ushered in. British colonialism, which she presided over all these years, had a terrible effect on much of the world, and it’s something that people revolt from. I have to say to your earlier question, why are American news networks dedicating all of this time to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral? I think it’s a good question. I think there is a weakness in the American character that still yearns for that era of hereditary privilege, which is the very thing that we escaped from. So there, I’ve made myself the skunk of the garden party.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN