By Daniel Larison • December 4, 2012, 2:47 PM

Alex Massie speaks for many of us, including me:

Is there not something mildly shameful, something plausibly demeaning, about this excessive fascination with another country’s ruling dynasty? Aren’t you supposed to be a bit better than this, America? There is no need for overt hostility to the British royals; a studied, even lofty, disinterest would surely be the most appropriate American attitude.

My impression is that popular and media fascination with the British royal family is bound up with the official Anglophilia that so many pundits and politicians feel compelled to embrace. The strange American fascination with the Windsors is the more popular version of the overly exaggerated importance that some people in Britain and America attach to the U.S.-U.K. “special” relationship. For dedicated Anglophiles in the U.S., it isn’t enough that the two countries have good relations and cooperate closely on a range of international issues. No, they have to pretend to be indignant about returned Churchill busts, U.S. neutrality between Britain and Argentina regarding the Falklands, and the possibility of Scottish independence. The best thing that can be said about American interest in the Windsors is that it is embarrassing but mostly harmless, while the other contributes to a political atmosphere that makes a normal, balanced relationship with the U.K. harder to maintain.