Taki Theodoracopulos

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Taki Theodoracopulos (Greek: Τάκι Θεοδωρακόπουλος; born August 11, 1937), better known as Taki, is a Greek-born controversial right-wing journalist and writer living in New York City, London and Switzerland. His column "High Life" has appeared in The Spectator for the past twenty-five years, and he has also written for National Review, the London Sunday Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New York Press, and Quest Magazine, among others. In 2002 Taki founded The American Conservative magazine with Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell. He is also publisher of the British magazine Right Now!.

1 Background
2 Politics
3 Lifestyle
4 Ethnic slurs
5 Quotations
6 Books
7 Notes
8 External link

[edit] Background

Taki is descended from an aristocratic family from the Ionian island of Zakynthos. His father was a shipping magnate who served in both the Greek Army during World War II's Balkan campaign and the anti-German Greek Resistance. Taki was educated at the Lawrenceville School and the University of Virginia, and is married to Princess Alexandra von Schönburg.

[edit] Politics

Taki is well-known for his vocal traditionalist and paleoconservative views. He is an outspoken critic of the current Iraq War. He has leveled particularly harsh criticism at such neoconservatives as David Frum, William Kristol, Christopher Hitchens and John Podhoretz.^{[citation needed]} He is also vocal in his criticism of vulgarity in both the media and in professional sports.^{[citation needed]} However, he occasionally uses profanity himself in interviews, and says this is because he went "through hell" in the Navy.^[1] Some of his more controversial statements are to be found in his inflammatory articles on contemporary immigration policy (see below).

He was prominent in the campaign to free the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet^{[citation needed]}, whose arrest he considered inconsistent with the rule of international law.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Lifestyle

Taki is a former captain of the Greek karate team, has competed in the Davis Cup, and is a keen skier. As an avid sailor, he has owned a series of sailboats and has expressed contempt for modern "gin palace" cruisers. Taki is also known for a lifestyle that reportedly revolves mainly around dinners, parties, alcohol, gambling, and the pursuit of women. In this, he reflects his open admiration for Ernest Hemingway and Hemingway’s traditional view of masculinity.^{[citation needed]}

In 1984, Taki was arrested at Heathrow Airport for cocaine possession, for which he served a three-month jail term in England's Pentonville Prison. His memoir Nothing to Declare came out of this experience, and was described by Kirkus reviews as a "sometimes whiny, sometimes charming, always opinionated running commentary on his life, his friends, and his time behind bars."

Taki's behavior has led to a number of fights and altercations over the years. This includes brawls on the streets of Manhattan, karate matches in the Pentonville Prison recreation room and confrontations over women in the ski resort town of Gstaad, Switzerland.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Ethnic slurs

Taki has been criticised for using ethnic slurs by the newspaper The Guardian.^[2] In 2003 Scotland Yard investigated complaints over a column he wrote in The Spectator that referred to a shooting incident in the north of England in which Taki asserted "Britain being mugged by black hoodlums."^[3] The Yard's "Diversity Directorate" decided not to press charges.

On New York City's Puerto Ricans:

"A bunch of semi-savages ... fat, squat, ugly, dusky, dirty and unbelievably loud. They turned Manhattan into Palermo faster than you can say 'Spic'."

On Africa:

"Democracy is as likely to come to Bongo-Bongo Land as I am to send a Concorde ticket to my children."

On Britain's Black population:

"What politically correct newspapers refer to as 'disaffected young people' are black thugs, sons of black thugs and grandsons of black thugs ... West Indians were allowed to immigrate after the war [and] multiply like flies."

Due to Taki's characterization of himself as a "soi-disant antisemite",^[4] coupled with strong criticism of the Israeli government and its supporters in the United States, The Spectator no longer permits him to write about Israel or Jewish affairs. Taki later took back his self-description as being anti-Semitic, implying that he had not understood the difference between the terms "soi-disant" and "so-called."^[5] He also claims some of his comments are intended "to piss off politically correct journalists" and not to be taken at face value, and that he wasn't bothered by ethnic slurs in his youth. "The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine. Obviously, one doesn't like to be called a greaseball, but you know — Greek, greaseball . . . Now, of course, all that is very, very unacceptable."^[6]

[edit] Quotations

Some of Taki's comments.^[7]

On Cherie Blair

"Not that I'm calling Cherie Blair a whore. She couldn't be one even if she wanted to; not good-looking enough."

On Hillary Rodham Clinton

"She, too, could not make a living from the world's oldest profession because of ugly looks and terrible ankles."

On himself

"I'm a family man, a provider, I pay my taxes, I'm white (although always sun-tanned) ... I inherited from my old man ... I employ people, I own a yacht ... you name it, I'm guilty of it."

On William and Jack Straw

"In Cool Britannia we don't send the son of a left-wing prick like Straw to jail for dealing [drugs]; we vote him president of the Oxford Union [sic, Straw was elected president of the Oxford University Student Union ] instead. (Apparently he is as much of a dictator as his father, and just as phony)."

On Bill Clinton and Tony Blair

"[They] are, of course, the masters of the direct lie, able to look straight into the camera and tell incredible whoppers that would make Mother Teresa blush. The man [Tony Blair] is pathetic, almost on the level of Bill Clinton, except for the hair."

On Ian Hislop

"Hislop deals in ruining people's lives through falsehoods, half-truths and gossip ... When that court high up in the sky gives the final verdict, the poisoned dwarf will come off second best."

"Hislop is a dwarfish Quasimodo who scares not only the horses, but also ladies from polite society and especially children. He should not be permitted outdoors during sunny days and school holidays."

His animosity toward Hislop is based on the latter's frequent jibes at him in Private Eye magazine. Taki is often described in the publication as "Taki Takealotofcokeupthenos". Taki sent a letter to the magazine, threatening legal action against being labelled a "cocaine dealer", despite a stated personal pledge never to sue anyone. The Eye issued a disclaimer, stating, "Taki is not a cocaine dealer, merely a convicted cocaine smuggler, a liar, and fascist sympathiser."

On Government & Politics

"All governments are monopolies of organized force, inherently unjustifiable. And once accepted, they are bound to get out of control sooner or later. No, there is no longer a Right or a Left. Bush’s mammoth expansion of government power and spending makes LBJ look like Robert Taft, the last true conservative—and peace lover, I might add. ...Labels are for fools."^[8]

[edit] Books

Taki, High Life, selected by Andrew Cameron, illustrated by Michael Heath. London: Viking, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82956-0
Taki and Jeffrey Bernard, High Life, Low Life, introduction by Richard West, edited by Cosmo Landesman. London: Jay Landseman, 1981. ISBN 0-905150-27-9
Taki, Nothing to Declare: Prison Memoirs, London: Penguin, 1992. ISBN 0-14-013256-2
Taki, Princes, Playboys & High-Class Tarts, foreword by Tom Wolfe, illustrations by Blair Drawson. Princeton: Karz-Cohl Publishers, 1984. ISBN 0-943828-61-9