Postures and Gestures Rather Than Results

Last week an op ed appeared in The New York Times under the byline of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with the title “I Am Proud of Our Diplomacy”.  The piece did not seem to get much notice during the holiday period.  It evidently will serve as a defense of a thin and disappointing record as Tillerson nears the likely end of an unhappy tenure.  One has to have some sympathy for Tillerson, who seems to be a good man, however ill-suited he turned out to be for the job of chief diplomat.  His biggest handicap has been the nature of the president for whom he works and the nature of his relationship with that president.  Some lines in the op ed reflect how the president has repeatedly undermined and contradicted his secretary of state—such as an oxymoronic sentence about negotiation with North Korea that says both that a “door to dialogue remains open” and that the regime “must earn its way back to the negotiating table.”