March 12, 2006

Henry K: "A Sad, Sad Old Guy"

We now take you to Helena Cobban acting like a poorly-informed ass:

Why did anyone ever take this sorry old guy's "intellect" seriously at all? He strikes me as just a muddled, highly irresponsible, imperialistic old bully.

I like Helena's blog a lot, visit it frequently, and think she does some really interesting, thoughtful work - so I was rather taken aback at this easy, lazy slam. I'm far from a Kissinger fan, but c'mon. I find the assertion that he's not actually a really bright guy to be just plain silly. He's viewed as one of the foremost thinkers and practitioners of Realism for a reason. Did he also succeed because of his political skills? Sure. But brain power was key to his rise as well. As to the rest - being "muddled" in 2006 has nothing to do with his mind or skills in the 1970's; and taking personal responsibility for failures associated with the outcomes of the policies they support isn't something that more than a tiny fraction of US leaders do - so it's not really fair to single out Kissinger on that point. The man's easy to dislike, but I think there are fairer and more accurate ways to criticize him.

Posted by armand at March 12, 2006 05:32 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Blogorama


Comments

Amoral would be a far more accurate description than muddled.

Posted by: binky at March 12, 2006 06:09 PM | PERMALINK
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