Kissinger: A Weiner of His Time
Introducing him to flog a new book, Stephen Colbert admiringly cites the days when Henry Kissinger chased women in his “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” days, an arresting contrast to the fate of Anthony Weiner for pursuing similar urges in our time.
In fact, by all accounts, Kissinger actually netted some of his quarry (“When I’m boring, they think it’s their fault”) while Weiner came up empty. Have Americans become more prudish in the intervening years?
One difference is that the 20th century diplomat, widely branded a “war criminal” (I prefer self-serving snake) for his lethal secrecy, was not furtive in sexual matters. Another was that the now 88-year-old gnome, thankfully in pre-Twitter days, did not transmit photos of his body parts.
In fact, Kissinger was proud of being “a secret swinger.” When I sent Nora Ephron, in her pre-“Sleepless in Seattle” days, to interview him, a staff member, while introducing her to the alleged Great Lover, remarked, “Another Hunebelle?” The reference was to a French journalist who had written a book about her infatuation titled “Dear Henry.”
In it, Danielle Hunebelle described him as “a species of monster.” Yet at first meeting she noted, “With his sloping forehead, aquiline nose and heavy, skeptical chin, he looked like a libidinous bird…Suddenly I realized that Kissinger’s skin color was yellow, a grayish ashen kind of yellow…I looked at him tenderly. What a poor lover he must be…”
8 Responses to “Kissinger: A Weiner of His Time”
Weiner is quite the innocuous fellow compared to Kissinger – who truly IS a war criminal. Of course Kissinger is yet another case of no accountability.
Kissinger might be accused of being similarly arrogant to Weiner (though certainly not as annoying or obnoxious). In no way is Weiner the intellectual or achievement peer of Kissinger. No way. Comparing the two is a gross insult to Kissinger, with all the latter’s warts included.
“Comparing the two is a gross insult to Kissinger, with all the latter’s warts included.” – DLS
Either this is all just a big joke to you or your only purpose is to provoke. Unlike Weiner, Kissinger has a tremendous amount of blood on his hands. Apparently that means nothing to you.
There is no comparison between Kissinger and Weiner.
Weiner is an annoying gnome who, thankfully, seems to have murdered his political chances.
Kissinger, on the other hand, is a giant among dwarfs who did great things for American interests abroad.
I’ll give Kissinger mucho credit for detente and the opening relations with the USSR and China. However, his handling of Vietnam(War) was a disgrace. Did many great things, while also doing great harm.
Spence — for multiple days you have failed to comprehend. (Is it due to “progressive” dreams continuing to be shattered by reality?)
Weiner has been a deliberately confrontational and controversial (lightweight! Ann Coulter, without even the trouble-career the latter can hope to enjoy, given the far Left’s fuel!) and in no way can compare to Kissinger.
That is the issue, as all intellectually mature (and competent!) people grasp immediately.
And AS A GIFT, I have even tossed to lefties, Kissinger’s “warts.”
[shaking head in anger and disgust, effectively on behalf of all Americans, not just me, the volunteer!] JMFC — GFDI …
[grrr] presumably still there will be the sub-50-IQ Obama circus P.T, Barnum super-Dem-voter-suckers if you’re the high rank…
Rudi, right on target and intellectually mature, even if later he made you puke. (He is offering now a book on China, I guess milking the market the bloated-federal-government-celebrity-decadence kind of consequence of liberalism’s worship of Washington has beget — I wonder if he in his book doesn’t refer to guanxi and his corrupt ties to big political people in China and “I get no rake-off” from disparaging an earlier interaction of our federal government, diplomats and others and he had with other east Asian nations.)
There was so much wrong with Vietnam I don’t ever think I can give Kissinger any credit for anything else.
1) Escalation of lies from the gov’t to the American people in order to get us in there. An actual hones to god gov’t conspiracy.
2) We supported thugs in direct contradiction to the will of the Vietnamese people, and in direct contradiction to what we as Americans profess to stand for.
3) Our long term strategy basically amounted to the bulk of our ground forces being used as bullet catchers until the South Vietnamese got their act together. We could never finish the war and were therefore forcing our soldiers into 10 years on the defensive.
4) Total misjudgment of the importance of our being there at all, meaning essentially all that conflict was for nothing
There was nothing good that came out of our involvement there. Kissinger was a major architect and proponent of our ongoing involvement and that I do not forget. I do think comparing him to Weiner is a bit odd, even tongue in cheek.