Prince Philip Gaffe: Duke Of Edinburgh Mocked Blind Cadet

Prince Philip is no stranger to the art of the gaffe (see 10 of his worst here), and sure enough he is again making headlines in Britain for a blunder, this time involving a blind army cadet.

The incident happened seven years ago at a tree planting event in Hyde Park, and involved a then 15-year-old army cadet who was blinded in an IRA bombing. The boy, Stephen Menary, had been asked by the Queen how much sight he had left, to which Prince Philip responded, "Not a lot, judging by the tie he's wearing."

While Prince Philip committed the gaffe years ago, it was only just now revealed by the cadet's mother during an appearance on the BBC.

"I was gobsmacked," Menary's mom said, according to the Daily Mail. "Maybe it was a joke to put us at ease, but it was the wrong sort of joke."

As for the Queen's response, the Telegraph reports that Menary's mom had the following to say: "After he said it there was just stunned silence. The Queen just looked at him open mouthed. I don't think she could believe what he had said."

Comments

[jasev01]

01:03 PM on 12/16/2009

Honestly, that was a good one but I still think he is an inbreed twit... but if he keeps those coming he maybe my favorite one.

[drjasonmd]

01:01 PM on 12/16/2009

Notice how the signs of inbreeding always seem to percolate to the surface?

[ShamusNYC]

11:04 AM on 12/16/2009

Doesn't this waste of skin have someone on staff to basically dress him?

[LittleRedHenSez]

10:18 AM on 12/16/2009

I can see this as a Carol Burnett spoof.

[CologneCitizen]

03:33 AM on 12/16/2009

His gaffes are often witty and funny. It may not be politcal correct but WTF.

The ones Bush did were funny because they were not meant to be funny. They occured from sheer ignorance or just bad manners.

[Sergeant]

05:44 PM on 12/15/2009

Take a good look at the picture. There you have a complete waste of taxpayer money.

[cheeriogirl]

05:07 PM on 12/15/2009

This incident happened seven years ago.

Why now HP?

[Rosewren]

11:41 PM on 12/15/2009

Read the article, it has just now been revealed by the cadet's mother.

[fredgladys]

03:57 PM on 12/15/2009

An unemployed sailor who was lucky enough to marry money.

[CarmenCameron]

02:48 PM on 12/15/2009

Has Prince Phillip looked at his wife lately? It takes an unusual degree of talent to look both frumpy and clownish simultaneously (and she doesn't have the excuse of being blind).

[1joy]

02:10 PM on 12/15/2009

Too funny.

[CarmenCameron]

02:57 PM on 12/15/2009

May be purely psychological, though, come to think of it.

After all these years of marriage to his wife, PP's sense of appropriate humor has been skewed by being forced NOT to laugh from embarrassment at the queen's uncouth attire. (In that photo accompanying the article, for instance, she strong;y resembles the character in charge of nonparelle production at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.)

[supertim]

01:29 PM on 12/15/2009

a brief history of PP's gaffes

He told a Briton he met in Hungary in 1993: "You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly".
In 1995 he asked a Scottish driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test."
The Prince angered local residents in Lockerbie when on a visit to the town in 1993, he said to a man who lived in a road where 11 people had been killed by wreckage from the Pan Am jumbo jet: "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still trying to dry out Windsor Castle."
During a Royal visit to China in 1986 he described Peking as "ghastly" and told British students: "If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed."
He said of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."
At the height of the recession in 1981 he said: "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."
In 1966 he provoked outrage by saying: "British women can't cook."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/416992.stm

[gavrielle]

01:27 PM on 12/15/2009

There's a reason the Queen never allowed Prince Philip to become King Philip.

[johnnygoodwud]

09:31 AM on 12/15/2009

didn't michael jackson have more fake medals than the princeses fake medals?

[6925thCobras]

08:53 AM on 12/15/2009

And Van Morrison wrote a song about it, "That Was a Wonderful Remark"...

[cobobs]

05:35 AM on 12/15/2009

What does a used up drone do?