Aster-Obits: Henry Kissinger & Sandra Day O’Connor
Two conservative icons recently passed within days of each other, as November rolled over to December 2023. On November 29th, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, propelled from academia into international prominence by Richard Nixon, instrumental in ending the Vietnam War and reestablishing diplomatic relations with Communist China, died at the age of 100. Two days later, on December 1st, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan appointee and the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, passed at age 93. While neither would recognize today’s Republican Party, so focused on grievance and retribution instead of policy, and both have serious blots on their legacies, each reminds us that there were once two viable political philosophies vying for control of the country, in a comparatively congenial and collegial atmosphere.
