Friday, March 17, 2017

Silent Rex


















SecState Tillerson is sure getting a lot of grief for his reserved demeanor and laissez-faire approach to the news media. I'm just going to go completely contrary and say that I admire his quiet style.

My favorite President is 'Silent Cal' Coolidge, and my favorite actor is Charles Bronson, in whose finest movie, The Mechanic (the original 1972 version, not the remake), he doesn't say a single word for the first 20 minutes. He didn't need a lot of jibber-jabber because he simply went about his job in a self-possessed and competent manner.

Why shouldn't Silent Rex avoid the media? In the age of social media, why do we still have press briefings, anyway? We all get the same information at the same time now, so it isn't like we have to wait until 6PM for Walter Cronkite to tell us "and that's the way it is, March 17, 2017."

More importantly, if you were a Republican appointee, what would you conclude about the press from, for instance, leaked email which show Hillary's campaign staff colluding with their friendlies in the press to control the narrative about a scandal?

The press isn't about to get that friendly with Tillerson. So why should he let them clutter up his airplane when he's trying to get some work done?

2 comments:

Jim Van Norman said...

Having no clue about foreign policy nor even having a foreign policy isn't clever or chess. Tillerson is lost. Too old, too tired and too disconnected.

TSB said...

Thanks for your comment.

Too old, tired, and disconnected? I can empathize. But really, why not have a CEO as SecState? He can run the building, and, more importantly, he has Trump's respect. Sadly, the professional staff does not.