“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time." - Hillary Clinton
"I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger" - Bernie Sanders
Who would have guessed that the 92-year old Kissinger would suddenly become a hot topic of debate in the Democratic primary contest? I certainly didn't see it coming, and I doubt Hillary Clinton did either. She wouldn't have invoked Henry Kissinger, during the fifth Democratic debate, if she weren't confident in the belief that it would be a safe position for her to stake out. After all, Kissinger is a respected elder statesman today, basking in the glory of such accomplishments as the role he played in opening up relations with the People's Republic of China, and the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1973 for "ending" the Vietnam War. The inconvenient fact that the war didn't actually end until 1975 doesn't seem to have troubled Kissinger in the least, but it did inspire this classic SNL skit.
Since leaving office in January of 1977, the former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State has written books, served on a number of boards, and founded Kissinger Associates. He has continued to advise presidents on foreign policy, and briefly served as the chair of the 9/11 Commission, until stepping down in December of 2002 rather than release his client list. His appointment by President George W. Bush had stirred up no small amount of controversy, and Kissinger gladly took the opportunity to bow out gracefully. No one is more aware than Henry Kissinger of just how vulnerable his carefully-crafted public image is to attacks, such as the one Sanders launched during the last Democratic debate, and I have to believe he is "feeling the Bern" right now.
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