KISSINGER SPEAKS FOR MCCAIN

This is a pretty big endorsement for McCain.

Posted: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 1:38 PM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC’s Bethany Thomas

At Faneuil Hall in Boston, Henry Kissinger told a crowd of McCain supporters that he “doesn’t usually get involved in things like this,” but given today’s conflicts in the world, he couldn’t stay away from the political scene. (Kissinger endorsed McCain earlier in the year.) Kissinger said he first met McCain in 1972 at the White House after he was released as a POW and has been a fan ever since.

Kissinger described the current international struggle: “There’s never been a period in history where so many things were in movement at the same time.”

“Now we need to deal with the world that I’ve described to you and that requires leaders who have spent some time thinking about it,” Kissinger said. “The senator had five years in solitary, figuring out who he is and why he is serving his country. He has never had any other political motive….He has had a unique experience in his life and he has, sometimes to his short-term disadvantage, only asked one question, ‘What is best for America, but also what is best for freedom in the world.’

“This is why I have supported him for 30 years; this is why I am doing something that I have not done before, and this is why I think John McCain will be the best person to lead America through the turbulent, but also hopeful period that is ahead of us.”

McCain took questions from the audience and also commented on Time Magazine’s choice for “Person of the Year.” “I noticed that Time Magazine made President Putin the Time Magazine ‘Man of the Year,’” McCain said. “I understand that probably, but my man of the year is one General David Petraeus, our general who has brought success in Iraq.”

Also, on yesterday’s Senate vote: “I had to go to Washington last night because for the 40th time on the floor of the Senate, the Democrats tried to impose a date for withdrawal and even cut off the funding for the mission and the young men and women that are in Iraq,” McCain said. “I regret that. I regret that because I don’t think any objective observer could draw any other conclusion than the fact that we are succeeding in Iraq.”

Emphasis added.