Full disclosure. I am not a fan of Rex Tillerson. When Trump talked about nominating him as Secretary of State, I thought it was a joke. Rex Tillerson had no foreign policy experience, his only foreign experience was corporate jets and high level pow-wows with foreign oil company execs, plus whatever local political ass kissing he had to do. The Senate Democrats were obviously leery, sticking him with the highest “no” vote in SoS history in his confirmation vote. His invisibility, mute attitude towards the press, and secretive foreign trips have done nothing to build confidence. Neither did his stating that he never wanted the job in the first place. Saying the US government was done talking about North Korea was the capper.
To be fair, Tillerson is not a natural. He has no political experience, other than making donations to politicians and Super PAC’s to get goodies for Exxon. He also has no political foreign policy experience. He may be the quickest study in the world, but he still needs a teacher. But for God’s sake, can’t the guy at least fake it a little bit, spout an empty platitude or two into the camera?
Lately Lawrence O’Donnell has been on a holy mission to excoriate Trump, but also other portions of his administration on his opening segments of The Last Word. Last night was no exception, and Rex Tillerson was in his sights. He flayed Terriblesaurus Rex up one side and down the other. He keyed on Tillerson’s complete lack of presence dealing in any substantive way with Russia, Syria or North Korea. But it was what happened next that was thought provoking.
Lawrence’s guests for the segment were David Corn and Max Boot. In serious looks and tone, David corn joined him in his assessment. But Max Boot had a slightly different read, and it was something I had never thought of, and I don’t recall reading positing it here. Boot’s contention was that Tillerson could even be a competent Secretary of State, but before he speaks, presumably on behalf of the US government and the President on the policy position of the government on an issue, or jets off to either consult with or confront some foreign leader, Tillerson, or any other Secretary of State needs one little, teeny thing. A clue as to exactly what the fuck he’s supposed to say! What’s the plan Stan? As we all know, Trump has no plan for anything to do with being President or governing except for spending as much time as possible reading RWNJ internet articles, and watching Fox for grist for his next tweet storm.
Lawrence responded with a video of Nikki Haley’s powerful and emotional comments to the UN Security Counsel on the Syria gas attack. She didn’t need crib notes from Trump to know how to respond, rationally and powerfully. And answer there came. Haley didn’t need it, she’s a politician, she knows the safe lane. And besides, she doesn’t speak for Trump or the entire US government, except in the UN. And people like Putin and Assad know that what she says doesn’t matter, the UN is not going to take decisive action.
Max Boot is right. I’m pretty sure that John Kerry never fired up the official jet, gave the pilots a destination and just jetted off to Seoul to tell the South Koreans how swell they were, and how much we had their backs, and then swung by Tokyo to see if his favorite sushi bar had any new varieties of rolls. Whether he smelled trouble and went to Obama and said, “I think I better have a little chat with these people”, or Obama called him in and and said “I think you should go tell (insert country name) what our position is on their latest plan”. And then Obama told him exactly what the position was.And it’s not like there’s anybody senior at State that can give Tillerson any pointers here, not even on how to fudge and obfuscate. Tillerson purged all those know it all pests in his first week in office.
So here we are. We have North Korea launching test missiles, and threatening preemptive action, South Korea needs concrete assurances that we have their backs, and won’t cop a midnight run with our troops if Maniac Kim starts lobbing shells on the demilitarized zone and Seoul, Japan needs to know that we will back whatever play they make if North Korea lobs missiles at Tokyo, and Putin and Assad can continue planning world domination and more mass atrocities respectively. And the only response from the United States Secretary of State is “I have no comment at this time”. At least he showed up in person at the NATO meeting to reassure them of our intentions if those damn Russkies invaded any more member nations.
What a way to run a goddamn railroad. Can we have John Kerry back? Or make Nikki Haley SoS?