The Eccentric RealistDuring the 2008 election season, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates both aspired to be understood as foreign policy "realists" in the mold of Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, who is distrusted on the neoconservative right for his skepticism about American exceptionalism and on the liberal left for his amoral, realpolitik approach, once again stood as the sage of foreign relations and the wise man who rises above partisan politics. In The