I wish I meant ‘wow’ in a good way.

I was just catching up with this morning’s Meet the Press, and I saw their first interview with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  I hadn’t had a chance to see Tillerson in any kind of unscripted event, so I was as interested in how he talked as what he said.  Not that he has to be television-ready or anything, but I’m curious to see how he works on his feet (metaphorically).

Secretary is one of the most powerful positions in the executive, and billionaire Tillerson was one of Trump’s first shocking nominations.  As Exxon’s Chairman and CEO,  he’d celebrated his deep relationships with Russian oligarchs and Putin himself, while lobbying against both Russian sanctions and against America’s interests.

So, yeah, wondering what he’s up to these days.

So Chuck’s first question was whether the Russian investigation was a witch hunt or ‘fake news’.  Tillerson’s ponderous answer was to emphasizing how important it was for the US to ‘re-engage’ with Russia, since our relationship was so terrible, with such a low level of trust.  Tillerson looked like he was struggling to remember all the words, but he finished without going off-script.

Todd asked Tillerson about our allies, since Russia is also interfering in their democratic elections as well.  What does it say to them, that Trump just fired Comey, the main person looking into that Russian interference in our election?

“All the other nations want the US and Russia to work to improve our relations.”  He went on to repeat his earlier position in the exact same detail.

Can you get ‘on a better footing’ with the Russians if we don’t even talk about their interference with the elections, Chuck asked. Since we never mentioned it in the recent meetings with Russia, and Trump still denies that it exists, putting Trump at odds with all 17 of the US intelligence agencies and their assessments.

“Well, Chuck, we have such a broad range of issues to discuss….”  Couldn’t hardly get to it.

Yeah, right.

Tillerson plodded on about how this isn’t new, that they’ve been doing it for a while, and how we all know about their interference.  He only stumbled a couple of times reciting the talking points.

But, he went on, there are just so many issues that are important.  This is just one in the range of important issues that we need to address, especially if we want to bring our relationship with Russia back to where we think it needs to be.

He was apparently trying to explain why this important issue was so high in the range of important issues that we don’t even bring up.  It’s just that important.

Todd pushed back hard.  “This is fundamental.  They interfered with our democracy.  I just don’t understand how this isn’t an essential issue.”

Tillerson got lost in the metaphor of a clean slate, then fell back to how critical it was that we become better buds with Russia.

Todd pressed Tillerson on the interference, and whether Tillerson believed it happened.  Tillerson did allow that they’d “played around” during our election, but it was more important that we become better friends with Russia.

It went on for a while, but my general impression was someone trying to defend the indefensible by spouting his campaign speech over and over, hoping Trump didn’t contradict him.  Again.

In other words, he’s not really the Secretary of State.  Tillerson is only pretending.  He has his one issue: eliminating the Russian sanctions.  Exxon is looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in new oil money that’s on hold because of those sanctions, and everything — everything — is filtered through that single, overriding concern.

Good to see another public servant dedicated to the common welfare.