We now know why Nancy Pelosi delayed submitting the articles of her Stillborn Impeachment. Her delay, her obstruction of Congress, her abuse of power, had not made much sense. But then we divined that she simply was waiting for the shipment of her commemorative pens. You cannot sign off on an impeachment without the Royal Pen — and without several dozen identical ones to hand out as Christmas gifts and birthday party favors. The Doddering Dowager obviously had ordered her pens during the height of Christmas season and, like so many other mid-December orders submitted by procrastinators, hers presumably was back-ordered. They finally arrived. That allowed her to make a short doddering speech, explaining the somberness of the moment, the sorrow and the pity, and then to bring out the ice cream, the cake, the noisemakers, and the souvenir pens. Meanwhile, the Homeless who line the sidewalks of her district freeze during the very cold California nights, starve, shoot up their veins, defecate on the streets, and urinate on so many public walkways that new meaning is given to The Golden State. Hopefully her homeless hordes will not be forgotten by their House Representative so that each of them, too, will get his or her own personal pen to urinate on in San Francisco.

Talking about “all that glitters is not gold” — there seems to be some kind of hubbub across the pond, as two members of the Royal Family apparently no longer are. As an American, I have mixed feelings about the Tudors and the institution of the monarchy. Until very recently, I completely had despised the institution all my life. Put plainly as American History 101, our country came into being because we overthrew King George. For a whiff of British monarchy, just read these 700 words from our Declaration of Independence:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Bottom line: What a low life!

So I detested the monarchy. And if you ever have watched The Six Wives of Henry VIII or Wolf Hall or A Man for All Seasons — or actually read a book about any of that stuff — those kings really were crazy. And what’s even crazier is that the monarch depicted in the movie The Madness of King George was not even the craziest of the bunch. Just consider how their royal romances followed a pattern as old as time:

King meets girl. King loves girl. Girl loves King. Girl does not give birth to a boy. King has guy who introduced him to girl beheaded. King has other guys who ever schmoozed with girl beheaded. King has girl beheaded. King meets new girl. King puts guy with axe on annual retainer.

Very bad stuff. But here’s the thing: unlike the way British monarchs comported themselves centuries ago when they actually had power, nowadays they serve an alternative purpose. In return for everyone in the country paying tons of tax money to keep them on Cadillac Plan welfare, Cadillac Plan food stamps, Cadillac Plan public housing, and Cadillac Plan Medicaid, they in turn provide a kind of social stability. The king or queen is supposed to be apolitical, giving voice neither to conservatism nor to liberalism. Rather, the monarch gives voice to whatever core values can be found that unite the entire country. So the monarch is not supposed to take a position on Brexit or on anything that engages the public debate, but instead the Queen dresses fancy as though every day is Halloween or Purim, with a nice crown and with a hat that exactly matches — not only in color but in precise shade of color — her outfit, her pocketbook, her belt. She gets to be all Queenly. People speak to her only when spoken to. The national anthem is not about the country or its values or sacrifices but solely about her. And, most importantly, her presence guarantees that at least one person in the country will not be divisive.

In that sense, we Americans today can use one of those. Just one Dowager or Dowagee with a chartreuse hat, chartreuse outfit, chartreuse belt, and chartreuse pocketbook who makes a speech that goes something like this:

My fellow Americans. Good morning to you all. The weather today is lovely. The tea is warm or iced; I like both, whether with or without sugar, whether with or without cream, whether with or without tea. We are a lovely country. Everyone here is lovely. I have asked President Trump to come to my palace to kiss my royal hand. He is lovely. Tomorrow Alexandria Ocasio-Ocasio-Ocasio-Ocasio shall be here to kiss my royal wrist. She is lovely. Then Sen. Rand Paul shall be here to kiss the royal elbow. He is lovely. Then former President Obama will be here to kiss the royal thumb. He is lovely. Thank you all, the lovely citizens of our lovely land, for hearing these powerful royal thoughts of mine this lovely morning. You all are lovely. I think I now shall take a royal nap until mid-afternoon, when I shall have another royal cup of suitable beverage. It has been a busy morning, so perhaps a Pimms Number One Cup. Oh, I am famished — I must also have a crumpet to nourish my royal sustenance. And then I shall watch with my royal pupils my handsome son, Charles, ride on a royal horse. It shall be a splendid day. And then perhaps, for a nightcap, a Number Six Cup mixed with Royal Crown Cola. Lovely.

It seems sometimes that it may just be that, at least for a few years, we Americans could use that. Just one person in the country who does not take sides and wishes all sides well because she really does not know what side to take anyway and is paid handsomely by all the hard-working stiffs who comprise the tax base not to figure it out for herself. Just to be all things to all people, and to make sure that the shades of color match precisely. In a time of national strife, there is something to that. One day magenta. The next day azure.

The downside to such a purposeless family on the public till, of course, is that they have nothing to do all day besides dressing for Purim or Halloween, smiling lots, matching hats to pocketbooks and belts, and watching the years toll by. Too much purposeless time always leads to mischief. In the end, we know how it plays out. Some guy named Andrew ends up with Jeffrey Epstein because he needed a place to sleep one night, and he happened to find Epstein on Airbnb or whatever. Years later, still with nothing to do, the same court jester gives an interview on the telly to talk all about it. Meanwhile, some guy named Charles grows up expecting that one day he, too, will be king. Now a septuagenarian, the man who would be king never was. And then, as always, there is some Harry and William in the story. One grows up next in line to be king, so the other has to figure out what to do with the rest of his life in order not to turn out like Andrew. So he marries a TV actress. “There, bro. You have your princess, and I have mine. You have your kingly suits, and I have my Suits.” And then the TV actress has a storybook wedding, just like every girl once dreamed about until Peloton started doing commercials. So the royal wedding, the royal flowers, the royal orchestra, the royal palace, the royal chuppah, and then the royal one-two-three-skiddaddle.

It amazes that an entire nation in Europe and five minutes on every hour in America is dedicated to following these two royal irrelevancies. The Duchess of Sussex? Oh, c’mon! Is that a goof to dump a tongue-twister on an unsuspecting outsider? Say it 10 times fast — impossible. Gimme a break. Do they matter more than you, your children, your friends, your neighbors do? Are they truly worth the precious time of your own life for reading about, talking about, thinking about? If they want to live in Canada but are not ice hockey professionals in the NHL, does it matter to us? Perhaps only to instruct us about the hypocrisy and phoniness of two people who are guaranteed to be wealthy and fawned over for life, who milked the royal mum’s name and reputation as much as they could until it was time to reciprocate by attending to the ho-hum daily public duties that are the quid for the quo, who established themselves for life with that “Zsa Zsa Gabor/ Kardashian/ Charles Nelson Reilly/ Paris Hilton Famous-for-Being-Famous” moniker that will guarantee them always to have an audience, a mega paycheck, and all the tony stylings of life that they claim they are abandoning so that they “can make it on our own.” Yeah, right. As if.

On second thought, then, maybe we do not need this in America after all. Besides, we already have our own uniquely American royal leeches. Chelsea Clinton hired by NBC for $600,000 a year as a “special correspondent,” then another $9 million in stock shares for sitting on the board of a company run by her parents’ friend. Hunter Biden, despite being thrown out of the armed forces for drug use and being an overall mess-up, now litigating against his once-beloved pole-dancing stripper whose child-support obligation now seeks some of that $50,000–$83,000 a month (annualized at $600,000–$1 million per year) that Hunter got for sitting on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while Veep Daddy Joe was in charge of deciding when and whether to give Ukraine $1 billion of our tax money. So that is the other side of royalty. Yes, it would be nice to have a public unifying figure in this country, but we have no Babe Ruth today. No Eleanor Roosevelt. When the great “hero” of basketball in fact is a gutless coward, the great “hero” of football cheats on pumping up the football, the great “heroes” of baseball cheat by using new technology to steal opposing teams’ signs, perhaps we need to turn elsewhere for our national heroes and unifying forces.

So take the picture of the Suchess of Dussex and of Prince William or Harry or Charles or George, and run it through the shredder. Print out a picture of Pelosi with her pen, of Chelsea and her money, of Hunter and a pole, and run it through the shredder. And then look at your husband or at your wife, at your mom or your dad — or at all of them. In the America that I love, those are our gilded unifying forces and heroes.