"Obama's a sap, and way out of his depth on foreign policy, but Biden, now, he's going to be a lot tougher. Wear a short skirt and very high heels when you meet him."

"Congratulations on your new boy!"

"What new boy?"

"Teehee, Mirwhine or something, you know, the light of something - teehee - or another."

"I'm Henry Kissinger not Hamid Karzai."

"Ooooooh, HK, same diff.  So you are Chancellor of Moldavia?  Teehee."

Stay still so I can touch your tits?

I kind of hate these contests.

I have a great recipe for moose étouffée...

"I preferred power, Viagra takes too long before it kicks in".

-----------------------------------------or-----------------------------------------------

"Detente does not make me a liberal"!

Sorry, this is Photo of the Day:

news.yahoo.com/.../e7a4426b1bc79911bd2735f85f3d662f

Kissinger: "High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make."

Sarah: "I'm not sure I can keep this media blitz up Henry, my smile is starting to hurt."

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul."

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explains to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for Vice President, how to win an election by negotiating secretly with murderous dictators.

[Not a caption] This is really confusing. The man who opposed a hardline on the USSR, who pioneered detente, is now attracting hatred and snark from people who support... Obama?

Are you guys closet Richard Perle admirers?

Kissinger: "Christ, you're even more boring than you look. I need a drink"

Sarah: "I love your photo's Henry."

Kissinger: "Has anyone got any whiskey?"

Sarah: "I, I understand you've travelled a lot Henry. Is that right?"

Kissinger: "Just don't talk...it would be better if you didn't talk. Every second is precious at this age. Has anyone got any whiskey?!"

Sarah: "I..."

Kissinger: "Please stop...Has anyone got any whiskey, seriously! Just don't talk. Work on your smile...Not that much, you're grinding your teeth woman."

"Why can't you say W words?  I wasn't mayor of Vasilla!" - Sarah P

Tep: Are you for real?  He's a war criminal and a cynic; Mencken would blanche at his amorality; Morgenthau is an idealist in comparison.  Kissinger has about as much claim to the conscience of a liberal thinker, or a sentient human being for that matter, as the corpse of Lenin in Red Square.  And WTF does Kissinger have to do with Obama?  Do you have to be a one-note pain, or is it voluntary?

"Well, actually I do have some experience with Bavarian sausage."

"You know what they say about power? Heh, heh."

"Who are you again?"

No, no!  -- ve always knew where Russia was, even if ve couldn't see it, that vasn't zhe problem . . . yes, I know the Coast Guard does a vunderful job . . . yes governor, I know Canada is there too, but . . . no I never . . . terrorist-trained moose sneaking in over the border?  Vell, it could be a threat we'll haff to deal with . . .

Let's see: "Negotiating secretly with murderous dictators": bad. Overthrowing murderous dictators: also bad. Very confusing.

Good thing you guys aren't advising Palin, or Obama for that matter.

Some of my best friends are jews, or they would be if any jews lived in Alaska. Anyway, you people are really clever and good with money.

blackie - Henry's heard that line before. About 35 years ago, in the White House, to be exact.

teplikhin2you--you seem to have an oddly strict sense of consistency. Kissinger is an objectionable figure for many reasons. I wouldn't count detente among them. Many "liberal hawks" disdain Obama as a repudiation of their principles. Such people, often possessing a grating sense of righteousness, might be inclined to criticize Kissinger for detente and for, say, his relationship with Marcos. I would join in the latter indictment.

Similarly, there does seem a middle path between "Negotiating secretly with murderous dictators" and "Overthrowing murderous dictators"--for example, having non-secret negotiations with murderous dictators or even cutting off diplomatic relations with these murderous dictators. You also seem to have conveniently omitted a crucial bit of context. sdcrippen wrote: "win an election by negotiating secretly with murderous dictators." This refers to this episode on Kissinger's wikipedia page: "While still at Harvard he had worked as a consultant on foreign policy to both the White House and State Department and, in the summer of 1967, had acted as one of a series of intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi in a peace initiative codenamed 'Pennsylvania.' In the autumn of 1968, he used his contacts with the Johnson administration to tip off the Nixon camp about an anticipated breakthrough in the Paris talks, which Nixon feared could cost him the campaign." Subverting a peace deal that would have averted tens of thousands of deaths so that Nixon could win? Par for course for Henry. Ironically, he later won the Noble Peace Prize for ending the conflict he had done so much to prolong.

Not so confusing to me. But, indeed, you are confused.

Tep, hate to rain on your self-righteous parade, but Kissinger was part of the secret operation in 1968 that undermined President Johnson's efforts to end the war and helped Nixon win the election.

Right on, sdcrippen and skipper2379.  The Nixon camp told the South Vietnamese government to hold out because they would get a better deal if he were elected President...  And this caused the talks to fail, prolonging the War.  

After several confused minutes during which her questions about Chachi go unanswered, Gov. Palin finally comes to the conclusion that maybe her prep on Henry Winkler was wasted time.

Fair enough, but riddle me this: why then are you guys supporting Obama's interference, while in Iraq, in  negotiations between his nation's government and a foreign power concerning sensitive military matters, specifically the timing of troop withdrawals?

Was Obama, as jhunger says of Kissinger, suggesting Al Maliki's government should "hold out because they would get a better deal if he were elected President"?

The main difference between Obama's subterfuges in 2008 and Kissinger's in 1967 is the skill with which their practitioner pulled them off. Obama couldn't even keep his ruse a secret for more than a month. Clown.

Wow. Tep, you just called Obama a clown. You're beyond self-parody now.

Sarah, you're in over your head. Turn this thing over to me.

Another difference, tep, is that Obama has publicly announced a policy position on a matter of some importance, and that Kissinger was secretly communicating with Hanoi connections in order to subvert an immediate tactical goal of his country.

The goal was to end a war. He prolonged it. This is precisely the opposite of Obama's situation. His goal is to end the war, McCain's to prolong the conflict. Even if the means were comparable (and they aren't), Kissinger's end goal was entirely ignoble. That can't be said of Obama.

Zackary Roth, of TPMmuckraker, gave a more than satisfactory response to the Riddler regarding Obama's "interference, while in Iraq, in  negotiations between his nation's government and a foreign power concerning sensitive military matters, specifically the timing of troop withdrawals."

-- It's worth looking at that distinction more closely to get a sense of what the Obama camp means here and where Taheri may have erred. In terms of a Status of Forces agreement, Obama has consistently made clear that he believes any such agreement should be delayed until after the election -- so that a President Obama or McCain would not be bound by an agreement negotiated by a weakened Bush administration. The McCain camp did not object when, in June, Obama told reporters at a press conference that he had made exactly this argument to Zebari in a phone call.

tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/.../noted_bamboozler_behind_latest.php

But far more important than anything Obama did or did not say in conversation with Maliki is what the Bush Administration did. Matthew Yglesias has a post this morning on an interview in which Maliki said:

-- Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but [the Bush Administration] asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

The Bush Administration is willing to have US troops die if that helps John McCain win the election. That's the Republican Party of today for you.

yglesias.thinkprogress.org/.../bush_pressured_maliki_to_revise_withdrawal_date_to_bail_out_mccain.php

Skipper2379: You have the history dead on concerning HAK. However, you err in saying that Mac wishes to prolong the war. Agree or disagree, what Mac actually supports is staying the course.

What US politician do you know of who has entertained discussions with an unfriendly foreign power independently of the government?

I have no doubt that Young Barack means well, but his tactics are stupid and counter-productive. He's undermining the US, confusing the Iraqis, and taking on a needless risk to his campaign. Why would he do this? What end -- other than feeding his ego-- is served by such a stunt?

Tep, get off it.  Who made you the TNR Talkback anti-snark policeman or the arbiter of political correctness among Obama supporters?  And do you seriously propose that support for Barack Obama and disdain for Henry Kissinger are inconsistent?  Get real.  Henry Kissinger had no consistent policy with regards to murderous dictators.  At various times HK negotiated secretly with murderous dictators, negotiated openly with murderous dictators, attempted to bomb murderous dictators and their supporters back to the Stone Age, and assisted murderous dictators in their efforts to assassinate their democratically elected political opponents.  

Besides, can you not see the inherent humor in the the juxtaposition of Henry Kissinger, an Austrian Jewish atheistic Cold War dinosaur and the very quintessence of moral relativism and worldliness, with Sarah Palin, a backwoods beauty queen Pentecostal Christian hockey mom?  Can you not see anything ridiculous in the McCain campaign's attempt to have it both ways with Palin?  To have her be both a small-town, real-American, regular gal, and at the same time someone who can engage in a substantive, stimulating conversation with Henry Kissinger?  

Tep, your responses in this thread lend support to my hypothesis that you lack any sense whatsoever of political psychology.  It's a good thing YOU aren't advising Palin, or Obama for that matter.  

I would have advised him, given his evident determination to meddle in the SOFA and SFA negotiation processes, to either up his game, ie be a *lot* more cunning (you might say Kissingerian) or else abandon the game altogether.

Re Kissinger and Palin, yeah, it's mildly amusing. I was trying to think of some kind of joke along the lines of his "power is the ultimate aphrodesiac" but I always found that silly and repulsive, coming from such a toad as Kissinger.

fwiw, I think Kissinger is one of the most overhyped f-p figures of the last half century. A brilliant media manipulator and BS artist. Eisenhower's the opposite: much more cunning and successful than he's given credit for. But if you're going to call him a "war criminal," then to be consistent you should do a full Chomsky and arraign the rest of the US f-p establishment over the last few decades. A lot of good _that_ will do your guy Obama.

"Well, I don't agree with him, but you could start with Fareed Zakaria's new book.  Eh?  Oh, that's Z-A-K-A . . . . "

I didn't call him a war criminal; icarusr did.

It's hard to say I agree with icarusr, but I do. teplukhin's support for Kissinger is nothing short of obscene, As a politician, he was a murderer. As a Jew, he was a bootlicker for anti-Semites - and that's putting it (too) politely. Together with James Baker, he was the most odious US secretary of state in the 20th century.

But guess what, tep, while you hyperventilate about Obama's fp incompetence, he's going to win this election hammering on McCain's dp incompetence.  

I'm preparing myself for 4 to 8 years of your high church Episcopalian disdain.

BTW=c'mon, guys, ease up on tep.  Sure he's an asshole every now and then.  We're all assholes every now and then.  At least he keeps us honest, unlike certain other kibitzers here.

"I'm preparing myself for 4 to 8 years of your high church Episcopalian disdain."

Speaking as someone who really *is* a high church Episcopalian, I resent that.

"What US politician do you know of who has entertained discussions with an unfriendly foreign power independently of the government?"

Tep, I'd advise not going there:  if you mean "politician" in reasonably broad terms, then the first and most striking example would be the US personnel close to the Reagan campaign who secretly negotiated with the Mullahs in Teheran to make sure the embassy hostages weren't released until after the 1980 election.

No insult meant, tim.  And feel free to rag on *my* religion.  I'm a backsliding Unitarian, if such a thing is even possible.

Tep, writes: "Fair enough, but riddle me this: why then are you guys supporting Obama's interference, while in Iraq, in  negotiations between his nation's government and a foreign power concerning sensitive military matters, specifically the timing of troop withdrawals?"

Riddle me this, Tep, do you read and believe The New York Post, where this scurrilous story originated? How do I know? My New York Post-reading in-laws started asking me the same question you just posed. So I did some research.

I recommend beginning with this comment by Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, author most recently of _Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics_ (Columbia University Press), who writes often on Middle East politics for the top foreign policy journals (Foreign Policy, The National Interest, the Wilson Quarterly):

abuaardvark.typepad.com/.../taheris-absurd.html

As preview, here's Lynch's conclusion: "A number of right wing blogs and magazines are trying to gin this up into another faux scandal. . . . But there's just nothing there."

As another preview, here's the take from ABC News, which Lynch quotes in an update:

Attendees of the meeting back Obama's account, including not just Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, but Hagel, Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers from both parties. Officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story and McCain attack.  The Post story is "absolutely not true," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told ABC News."

Please do a little due diligence before spreading the slander, Tep.

Nippers wins! The Nabokov quote captures the entire mysterious and oh so American connection.  I'm pinning it up in my office cube tomorrow, first thing.

Tep, I'm worried you won't do the due diligence, so I'm going to quote some more from Lynch, especially since you repeat some of his falsehoods, beginning with the bit about, and I quote, "while in Iraq." To be clear, "Taheri" is the guy who "broke" (i.e., confected) this story in The New York Post:

While in Iraq?

"Taheri doesn't even get the time or location of the supposed exchange right.  In the very same sentence which Taheri quoted, Zebari said:  "That is the question which Barack Obama asked me when I was in Washington a while ago, when I met with McCain and Obama."  That's right - Taheri's only piece of evidence that "Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July" is Zebari's account of an exchange which did not take place during Obama's trip to Baghdad in July, but rather during Zebari's trip to Washington in June.   If Taheri can't even get such an obvious and consequential detail right, why should we trust anything else he says?  

And again, I ask you, "While in Iraq"? Lynch:

His only on-the-record source is Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari's al-Sharq al-Awsat interview.  That interview very clearly refers to the June DC meeting and not to the July Baghdad meetings.  To conceal the fact that his only published source does not support his claim,  Taheri actually quotes the entire sentence in question while omitting the crucial clause "when I was in Washington a while ago."  

And what's this you say about SOFA and SFA? Mr. Lynch, please, straighten out Tep's noodle:

Taheri is exceedingly disingenuous about what was being negotiated in June 2008 (when the conversation took place). Back then, the Bush administration was still trying to negotiate the McCain position of legalizing the U.S. force presence for the long term and vehemently rejected any talk of time tables, time lines, or time horizons.   It was only in July that Maliki pulled the rug out from under McCain and Bush by insisting on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal in line with Obama's stated position. To describe the agreement being discussed in June as a "draw-down" agreement is misleading to the point of dishonesty.  That might also explain why Taheri dissembles about when exactly the purported conversation took place.

I'm not sure Tep got that, Mr. Lynch. Could you elaborate?

[Taheri] continues to maintain that this alleged attempt to delay the agreement until the next administration means Obama "preferred to have no agreement on US troop withdrawals".  This doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as detailed above, and Taheri doesn't even try to defend it.   There is simply no relationship whatsoever between the US and Iraq reaching agreement on the SOFA/SFA and the U.S. being able to withdraw troops.  There is an important issue of the U.S. presence becoming illegal on December 31 if no agreement is reached and the UN fails to extend its mandate - but that, again, would in no conceivable scenario force U.S. troops to stay in Iraq longer.

These aren't the only holes in Taheri's story, Tep. You are, I fear, an unwitting mouthpiece for the smear machine. Or else you are a witting one.

timteeter, we Episcopalians have to stick together.  (I'm kind of high/broad church myself.)

timteeter - you're my kind of asshole.

I'm still not sure whether my quotes were clear enough, Tep. Should have quoted this bit of Lynch as well:

Taheri implies that Obama's position that the agreement be approved by Congress is part of a secret, nefarious scheme for delay.  Um, no. Obama has consistently argued that any U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement should be approved by Congress because that would give it legal standing and would also be the best way to put the agreement on a firm, bipartisan footing to make it politically sustainable over the long run.  Since the Iraqi parliament will approve whatever agreement is reached, it seems reasonable that Congress should have the same prerogative. In the absence of this approval, Obama has favored a temporary extension of the current UN mandate governing the presence of U.S. forces so an agreement can be reached that has the support of both the American and Iraqi people. This position is not a secret. It is right there on Obama’s website.

"Zarah, just vate till you get to de vite haus.  You can take out whole countreez not von louzy shtrooper."

HK: Liebchen, let me explain the Kremlin to you.

SP: Oh, I loved "Gremlins!" Gizmo is so cute!

OK, so I don't know if this is still a caption contest, but if it is, I have to say, I'm winning, if only because I'm one of maybe two people who actually submitted a caption! ;)

And not for nothing, but I too am a "high church" (better: Anglo Catholic) Episcopalian. And despite what Marty Paretz says, I think the Millenium Development Goals are great.

HK: "The stories I could tell you about Dick Nixon..."

SP: "Who?...did he know Reagan?"

Hey, this is a rather slim contribution but it is late and I must admit, I am a bit disappointed. This kind of golden opportunity used to bring out the best of talk back and on this thread, there is just too much wrangling over petty political shit. I can tell that the election is getting to folks because talk back is getting way to negative and lately, there is always at least one or two fixated McCain scolds baiting Obama supporters...

Give me the good old days of billyard and joecuomo's lists...

jaunty,

I'm guilty of having been baited, but I blame Tep for snarling up such a promising thread. Snarl.

Shifting topics slightly, about a week ago I advocated here a campaign to "Free Sarah Palin" and suggested that some enterprising Obama supporters should begin a daily drumbeat to let Caribou Barbie face actual journalists. I'm very pleased to see that CNN's Campbell Brown has seized the initiative and did an extended rant on how disgraceful it was that the McCain campaign has been hiding her away like she's some kind of delicate creature who'll wilt at the sight of a journalist.

The video makes for very satisfying viewing and can be seen here:

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../campbell-brown-rips-mccai_n_128782.html

Someone needs to bring this thread back down to the depths of juvenile humor, dammit.

"Of course I'd love to examine it, Dr. Kissinger...but I thought it was pronounced "detente," not "de taint."

Henry Kissinger lectures Sarah Palin on the intricacies of diplomacy. Here, he demonstrates his favorite technique, RPS (Rock Paper Scissors). Palin replied, "OK, scissors, got it...you're done? 'Cause at church we have the prayer for Jews and I told them we'd do it...together."

Internet speculation ran rampant today after word leaked that "Batman" franchise director Christopher Nolan held a joint casting session for The Penguin and Catwoman.

adaglas (:37) wins.  By a batmile.*

*One quibble: why Catwoman?  She's more The Schtrumpf; or, better yet, American Maid.

Jaunty: You're right, but to suggest that Obama supporters should somehow, by definition, support that odious criminal is just too much.  Tep is gone off his rockers, as far as I can see, and is joining Liberal and Eos and the rest of them in the Repug Pantrollean of TNRLand.  Really sad; it's like seeing a beloved uncle descend into dementia in accelerated time.

Tep: I don't like Hitchens, but he has an article in the Atlantic, circa 1994, I believe, in which he delivers the best case for indicting Kissinger on war crimes charges, for his part in the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, neither of which was a belligerent nation in 1973.  The moral case against the soi-disant "Metternich" (what fucking presumption!  And calumny against Metternich, who actually did have very strong principles, if wrong ones.) is even stronger, because it was the bombing of Cambodia and the instability caused as a result that led to the fall of the first Sihanouk regime, concluding in the Killing Fields.  Can't indict him for that; but you could for having engineered the attacks on a peaceful state.

And, by the way, I think Mr. Hitchens would be a tad upset to be compared to Chomsky.  As well, not all "war crimes" charges are created equal.  To say you go after Kissinger for Cambodia, is not the same as going after Bush for Iraq; Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib is a different issue - but not the time to be discussing that.

zarah my dear, I think there is a birds nest in your hair

"No! No! No.  Again - The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"

HK - "So, are you going to help me out of this chair or what?"

SP: Through smiling, gritted teeth: "Not until the picture is taken."

"Remember, Governor, hiring your friends may vork in state government, but in ze Vite House you vill need highly trained amoral intellectual prostitutes like me."

A second for adaglas (:37).  

Since there seems to be an Episcopalian count in progress, I should sign in as Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian, too. We're a funny bunch, IMO, but fabulous all the same. I breathe such a sigh of relief when I walk through those red doors (actually, my parish's doors aren't red, but I like the tradition).

drozenson gets my vote. Quick have someone pen a cartoon and submit to The New Yorker. Bravo.

HK: "Ven I negotiated de nuclear treaty vith de Russians, zey tried to send a hooker to my hotel room, but I said nyet, nice try."

SP: " Wait ... won't I get my own room?"