Kissinger Tapes Reveal We Are Still Living In 1972

Imagine a White House full of scheming backstabbing power-mad global criminals -- you know, but not right now. Earlier, like from 1969 to 1974. That's when the hilarious duo of Henry Kissinger and his meathead drunken buddy Richard Nixon were president.

Like our current crazy duo of Cheney & Dubya, "Jew Boy" and "Meatball Mind" broke hundreds of laws, murdered hundreds of thousands of people and basically tried their damnedest to destroy the United States of America. After the jump, read hilarious highlights from the just-released Kissinger tapes -- turns out Kissinger was taping everybody's phone calls, too!

* Kissinger called U.N. ambassador George H. W. Bush "an idiot."

* Nixon said Kissinger was "psychopathic," had a "suicidal complex" and needed psychiatric help.

* Nixon was also nuts and had a psychotherapist, Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, who wrote a book called The Will To Live , which Nixon read to diagnose Kissinger.

* Both knew as early as 1969 that there was no way to win in Vietnam, agreeing that victory "won't happen -- it is impossible," in Henry's words.

* So they obviously decided to brand Democrats "the party of surrender" for admitting the same thing.

* When former Kissinger aide Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the NYT , Kissinger said: "That son-of-a-bitch. I know him well. He is completely nuts .... He always seemed a little bit unbalanced."

* With this constant amateur psychology going on, the White House was basically "The Bob Newhart Show" -- other than the big ties and bigger lapels, this is the only way in which the Nixon White House differed from the Bush/Cheney White House.

* Nixon hated Jews and loved to taunt Kissinger about being a total Jew. But at least he wasn't always publicly mocking the Holocaust, like Cheney. There is something almost touching in Nixon's logic for trying to keep Kissinger from too much Middle East diplomacy -- the Holocaust was so awful that a Jew could never be objective about Israel: "He can't help but be affected by it. Put yourself in his position. Good God ... his people were crucified over there. Jesus Christ! Five -- five million of them popped into big ovens! How the hell's he feel about all this?"

* Saying Jews were "crucified" in the Holocaust is, at best, a mixed metaphor.

* Kissinger himself was not a big fan of the Jews: "Is there a more self-serving group of people than the Jewish community? ... You can't even tell the bastards anything in confidence because they'll leak it."

* Was Nixon secretly a flashy dancer, or a clandestine ladies' man? Kissinger once flattered him with this weirdness: "You are a man of tremendous moves."

* Nixon also enjoyed toying with Kissinger over the China assignment. "How about Bush?," Nixon asked Henry.

* "Absolutely not," Kissinger replied. "He is too soft and not sophisticated enough."

* So Poppy Bush was basically a punchline in the Nixon White House. That's hilarious, until you realize he eventually schemed his way into the White House for twelve years and then got his retarded son installed for another eight.

* Ha, Kissinger did the same thing to Nixon when the Yom Kippur War started as Cheney did to Bush on 9/11: Keep the dummy stranded in Florida! "When Haig reported that Nixon was considering returning [from Key Biscayne, Florida] to Washington, Kissinger discouraged it -- part of a recurring pattern to keep Nixon out of the process."

* One time when British PM Edward Heath called the White House and wanted to talk to Nixon, Henry blocked the call because Nixon was so fucked up he couldn't talk. "Can we tell them no? When I talked to the President he was loaded." We're pretty sure this happens most of the time when Tony Blair tries to call Bush.

* When Moscow threatened to enforce the Yom Kippur War ceasefire by itself, Kissinger and Haig devised their own response with their underlings at State and the NSC -- deliberately leaving Nixon out of it. Vanity Fair reports: "It was an extraordinary turn of events. None of the seven officials who met for more than three hours, until two a.m., had been elected to office."

* Kissinger privately referred to Nixon as "that madman," "our drunken friend," and "the meatball mind."

* Nixon referred to Kissinger as "my Jew boy" -- both behind his back and to his face.

You should really read this whole four-page article:

 The Kissinger Presidency [Vanity Fair]