Once I searched the Prince of Spain...

[libertango]

...now I work at the Pizza-Pizza.

Or so one would hope.

Spanish Crown Prince Felipe and his fiancee Letizia Ortiz went on a trip to the Bahamas.

On their return trip to Spain, they took a chartered jet to Miami International, where they planned to transfer to a commericial Iberia Airlines flight.

Problem: The Crown Prince of one our few allies in Iraq, an ally increasingly likely to pull out, so you'd think an ally we'd like to treat in as diplomatic a way as possible to persuade them to continue to work with us... Anyway, the Crown Prince gave only a six hour advance warning to the airport that he and his party would be flying through.

Apparently, policy is that one needs to give 72 hour notice for expedited VIP security handling. So the TSA searched the Prince, his fiancee, and the entire party.

The Miami Herald, who broke this story, takes the stance of, Those wacky royals. Expecting special treatment.

I certainly hope our troops appreciate that when the Spanish pull out of Iraq. And I look forward to the Herald's reaction should Air Force One be subjected to similar search procedures.

But it doesn't end there.

"The need by the princess-to-be to go the powder room caused another flare-up. Ortiz was told her already-searched purse would be searched again on her return from the nonsecure area. She decided to hold it.

That sparked more angry words and exchanges, delaying the process and making the entire royal party late for the flight, which waited."

Have I mentioned yet that Ms. Ortiz is the anchorwoman for the number one TV news program in Spain?

No?

Can you imagine the possibilities here? What happens if she leads off every future broadcast with, "Today, I wasn't searched by the United States." That'd be a running gag at least as good as anything Letterman is doing vis-a-vis Oprah, or Saturday Night Live and Francisco Franco. (Talk about irony...)

Comments

[rosefox]

Honestly, I think that holding airport security staff to a higher standard than the Crown Prince is held to is pretty bogus. The screeners are supposed to just wave him through because he didn't respect stated regulations from an allied nation, and if they don't it's okay if he retaliates against them doing exactly what they're supposed to do via a major wartime policy change?

I would expect the security screeners to behave in accordance with the regulations that are presumably in place for a reason (and if not, to follow them while working to change them, until the change comes through), and to treat everyone with the respect and courtesy due to a major political ally because really, you never know who is or who isn't and it doesn't hurt to be polite. I would expect a Crown Prince and his Princess-to-be to graciously apologize for not giving sufficient advance warning, go through the security procedures, and make policy decisions based on something more relevant than the behavior of a handful of American citizens who are in no way intended to be or acting as diplomatic representatives of the country.

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, can you imagine the outrage on the part of Americans if our vice-president (let's just pretend for the moment that we actually like our vice-president) and his (famous and popular) wife were subjected to similar treatment by an allied country because their trip had been scheduled at the last minute due to the demands of office?

Fair or not, this was a major diplomatic faux pas.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

This was also my point in mentioning Air Force One. It seems like yet another example of where our rules apply to the rest of the world, but their rules aren't supposed to apply to us.

And Ms. Ortiz isn't just popular. She's popular and in a position to greatly influence how the incident is presented to the Spanish people.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

My ConLaw prof, Leo Flynn, used to say the toughest cases aren't between right and wrong -- those are easy -- but between two rights.

I understand the desire to be egalitarian. Applying the rules equally to all has its place.

But my guess is -- and I'll concede it's only a guess -- my guess is that they didn't give more notice because Nassau to Miami is only 186 miles. My guess is that they were never told they needed 72 hours notice, and thought 6 was plenty for a 45 minute flight. My further guess is that even with 6 hours notice, no one at the airport thought about calling the State Department, which would certainly have been my first call at that point.

And this isn't just a question of what Mr. de la Borbon and Ms. Ortiz think about the situation. Consider this quote from the Herald story: "An official of the Spanish Consulate in Miami said Friday that it will be up to Consul General Javier Vallaure to decide whether a complaint will be sent to the U.S. State Department. ''We don't consider this the proper way to treat our future king; it's a breach of protocol,'' said the consular official, who would not give his name."

Consider that while this being played for silly season stuff in the US, in Spain's premier newspaper, El Pais, it's front page news ("La policía del aeropuerto de Miami somete a registro el equipaje del Príncipe y Letizia Ortiz", right-hand column in the image shown, which'll probably go poof later today). Consider that the only reason the story is as far down as it is in El Pais is because the Fallujah story beats it out... and what a great juxtaposition that is to present to the Spanish people, eh?

If it had been the Crown Prince of Tonga, I'd have no problem with following the letter of the regulations. If the Spanish were more solidly on our side -- say, before 11 March -- I'd have no problem.

But doing this particular action to these particular people at this particular time seems, at best, imprudent to me. At worst, it seems like possibly some Karl Rove-ian revenge gig, which also strikes me as counter-productive.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Well, speaking as someone from a country with a royal family - the relationship of a nation to its royals is often much less loyal than it looks from outside. (If the Americans had insisted on searching Charles Windsor and Camilla Parker Bowles because they'd given 6 hours notice instead of 72, I can swear that all the newspapers would be indignant, some more so than others, but that most people wouldn't really care and quite a lot of people would think it was really funny.) Certainly it would not affect British involvement in Iraq, nor would I think it should.

That said, to-search-or-not-to-search a VIP party that hasn't given proper notice is tricky question. It's not like a diplomatic passport: it's just really a matter of famous people not wanting to be treated like your average pleb. Politesse would involve the airport staff offering to exempt the prince and his girlfriend from the search, and their both voluntarily submitting to it on the same terms as everyone else.

The problem I do have is your comment:

If it had been the Crown Prince of Tonga, I'd have no problem with following the letter of the regulations.

Tonga is also a member of the "coalition of the willing"... If you're going to have a rule that allied royalty are exempt from searches, it should be all or none.

[rosefox]

If they weren't aware of the 72-hours thing, then yes, I agree. There's a lot that just isn't in the article. sandralee said "due to the demands of office" and I don't see anything about those in the article; they might well have been coming back from vacation. It's not clear whether the royals were belligerent or the airport staff impolite or neither or both. I'd love more details.