dwell for a moment on the awfulness of Tillerson.
He came to office with no discernible worldview other than the jaded transactionalism he acquired as ExxonMobil’s C.E.O. He leaves office with no discernible accomplishment except a broken department and a traumatized staff.
Six of the 10 top positions at State are vacant; even now the United States does not have an ambassador to South Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa or the European Union, among other posts.
.. he did seem to figure out that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. But that’s progress only because he was previously the Russian despot’s premier apologist.
.. he opposed the president’s two best foreign policy decisions: moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and decertifying the Iran deal.
.. Some secretaries of state — Colin Powell, for instance — alienate their bosses by siding with the bureaucracy. Others, like Henry Kissinger, do the opposite. Tillerson is the rare bird who managed to do both.
.. unlike Tillerson, he will have credibility with foreign governments. Just as importantly, he’s been willing to contradict the president, meaning he’ll be able to act as a check on him, too.
Trump isn’t going to be disciplined by someone whose views are dovish or establishmentarian. But he might listen to, and be tempered by, a responsible hawk.
.. The notion that Kim Jong-un is going to abandon his nuclear arsenal is risible. What, other than reunification of Korea on Pyongyang’s terms, would Kim exchange his arsenal for?
Equally risible is the idea that his regime will ever abide by the terms of a deal. North Korea violates every agreement it signs.
.. might strike it at South Korea’s and perhaps Japan’s expense. This president has never been particularly fond of our two closest Asian allies, much less of the cost to the United States of aiding in their defense.
.. The promise of Pompeo is that he can provide ballast against some of Trump’s other gusts, particularly when it comes to the Kremlin.
- On Syria, he dismisses the possibility of a collaborative relationship with Russia.
- On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he insists, “America has an obligation to push back.”
- On WikiLeaks, he calls it a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
- On Russian interference in the U.S. election, he acknowledges it as incontrovertible fact and warns of the “Gerasimov doctrine” — the Russian conviction that it can use disinformation to win a bloodless war with the West.
.. If the thought that Putin has strings to pull with this president alarms you, Pompeo’s presence should be reassuring. However much you might otherwise disagree with him, the guy who graduated first in his class from West Point is not a Russian stooge.
.. he’d be smart to model his behavior on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the administration’s one undisputed star, who thrives in his job because he’s plainly not afraid of losing it, much less of speaking his mind.
Rex Tillerson Supposedly Shifted Exxon Mobil’s Climate Position. Except He Really Didn’t.
“Tillerson’s own views about climate science were not greatly different from Lee Raymond’s,” though Tillerson “did not claim or wish to project the same sort of independent scientific expertise that Raymond had offered about climate science.” But Tillerson did see that the company needed to reposition itself.
.. Its 2007 Corporate Citizenship report announced that the company would “discontinue contributions to several public policy groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”
.. Tillerson “brought a more clever approach, a more PR-savvy approach, to climate at Exxon, but the company really didn’t change its stripes much,” said Kert Davies, who leads the Climate Investigations Center and was the creator of ExxonSecrets
.. In June 2009, the House passed a bill to set up a cap-and-trade system limiting carbon emissions. But that legislation failed to gain traction in the Senate. Exxon undertook an aggressive lobbying campaign that year, spending $27.4 million ― more than the entire environmental lobby combined, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The American Petroleum Institute ― of which Exxon Mobil is a member ― launched its own PR campaign against the legislation.
.. he said publicly he preferred a tax on carbon ― a policy that was not under debate in Congress at the time, but was also politically implausible at best, considering it was in the middle of the Great Recession... Supporting a carbon tax wasn’t necessarily a cynical ploy to undermine the cap-and-trade bill; there are practical reasons a company like Exxon would support of a carbon tax. A handful of fossil-fuel companies already assign a price to carbon emissions for their internal accounting, including Exxon. As more countries take steps to cut carbon emissions as part of the Paris agreement, Exxon has said it prefers a predictable tax on carbon to a cap-and-trade system that is open to market fluctuations.
.. And unlike many of its industry rivals, Exxon has failed to invest seriously in renewable energy.. Tillerson has openly mocked the clean-energy industry for years, joking once that he wasn’t “really against renewables” because wind turbine operators bought Exxon’s oil as a lubricant. “The more windmills are built, the more oil we sell,”.. the company funded a Big Tobacco-style disinformation campaign.
..It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the world’s largest oil company is good at greenwashing ― they spend more money on it than they do on renewable energy development.”
Finally, The REAL REASON Why Trump Picked Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson AND Why He’s Taking a 99% PAY CUT
This Exclusive Report FINALLY Explains the mystery surrounding WHY Trump Picked the filthy-rich CEO of Exxon Mobile Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. He certainly is not a household name and most American’s have never heard of him. Trump who has been selecting mostly loyalists, didn’t even know Tillerson previously. Rachel Maddow explains just how Tillerson made it on Trump’s radar and also why Tillerson, who’s never worked anywhere but Exxon, would take a job that’s offering a 99% PAY DECREASE.
Why Rex Tillerson Has the GOP Foreign-Policy Establishment’s Support
Mr. Gates’ former boss, President George W. Bush–who has stayed largely out of political affairs since leaving office–called the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, to push the Tillerson nomination. Mr. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, also a former defense secretary, has called Mr. Tillerson “an inspired choice.”
Yet another former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, went on Twitter to call Mr. Tillerson “a talented exec” and a “skillful negotiator.” Former Secretary of State James Baker has called Mr. Tillerson a personal friend and an “excellent choice.” Another former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, as well as Stephen Hadley, a former national security adviser, both praised the choice as well.
.. In part, the reason is simply that these figures all know Mr. Tillerson. Exxon Mobil has been a client of the consulting firm run by Ms. Rice and Messrs. Gates and Hadley, and a client of Mr. Baker’s law firm.
.. But perhaps more important, these establishment figures are comfortable with him, and probably feel his presence at the State Department will give them some input on the course of American foreign policy