From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Henry Kissinger, we all know by now,

will head the Commission investigating American intelligence failures in connection with 9-11.

The media response has been muted, partly because of the holiday timing,

but also because of Kissinger's peculiar position as a public figure.

MSNBC news anchor Brian Williams.

Look, there are a goodly number of Americans who spend each day in this country believing Henry Kissinger is an unindicted war criminal.

We spoke to Williams last year after the U.S. press failed to report that Kissinger had been

subpoenaed by a French judge in connection with a South American terror network.

Should Henry Kissinger answer for either perceived past sins or reasons why his name may be in the

news today? Yes, I think everyone needs to understand, though, there's a time and place for everything.

Now Kissinger is back in the news, and commentators ranging from William Sapphire of the New York Times to Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's Daily Show, have noted that Kissinger's unusual background makes him the man for the job.

If you want to investigate an assault on a democracy,

who better to head it than the man who instigated the overthrow and assassination of the

democratically elected leader of Chile in 1973? Who better to look into a secret attack than the man

who secretly bombed Cambodia? And in general, who better to investigate the failures of U.S. intelligence on behalf of the American people than the man who successfully kept the American people completely in the dark about U.S. intelligence. Plus, he had sex with Shirley McLean.

He's always been criticized, criticized, criticized, to no avail.

I mean, it isn't as if the criticism has stopped him.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

He went from success to success to success, much to the annoyance of his critics.

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