Skip to main content

Did Tillerson call The Donald a Moron

With Tillerson out and The Donald still standing I thought it might be good to review a political tempest from so-long-ago last summer. This originally ran in the Long Prairie Leader.-----

Did Secretary of State Rex Tillerson call Donald Trump a moron in July? NBC television reported that he did and CNN says that they confirmed NBC’s reporting. When Tillerson was asked in an October 4th news conference if he used the M-word to describe the Commander in Chief, Secretary Tillerson said he didn’t want to talk about petty stuff. But shortly after Tillerson’s visit with the press, the State Department’s spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, denied that Tillerson called Trump a moron. Presumably Heather Nauert spoke with Rex Tillerson in early October and Rex was able to recall what he said ten weeks earlier. He then gave his spokeswoman permission to expose the pettiness of it all. Rex, Heather said, does not use language like that.

So what’s the big deal? Since America’s chief diplomat called his boss a moron, so has The Boss, aka Bruce Springsteen. Here’s what he told Rolling Stone on September 23rd:

“Well, you know, the republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic. Without overstating it, it's a tragedy for our democracy.”

And after Springsteen stepped forward and stated the obvious, there was Australian comedian Kathy Griffin. 

“I am going to call him a moron and Nazi ... Americans are skittish about calling him a Nazi but he is one,” Griffin told Fox News on October 24th.

My Goodness! Such name calling!

Nobody has questioned whether Griffin or Springsteen called The Donald a moron. They flat out did. But as the stink over Tillerson’s alleged gaffe continued to hang over Foggy Bottom, Forbes magazine weighed in. In an exclusive with the President they asked: Did Tillerson or didn’t he?

“I think it’s fake news. But if he did [say] that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”

Attaboy! That’s our Donald.

So what’s a moron anyway? And is the 45th President of the USA one of those?

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines moron as a person affected with mild mental retardation or a very stupid person. A moron, the dictionary says, has actions that are moronic. That is to say a moron’s actions are very stupid and even demonstrate a mild mental retardation.

Those who say that Tillerson called his boss a moron say he said the M-word when The Donald claimed the US of A had too few nuclear weapons. They say that when the Tweeter-in-Chief learned that we have a mere 4,000 nukes (the most of any nation in the solar system) he wanted to increase the number to 32,000 weapons of massive destruction.
Is having the most enough?
Photo of Nagasaki destruction thanks to Wikipedia


Now Rex Tillerson is not the brightest light in the movie marquee but if he really responded to Trump by calling him a moron I’m going to agree with him. How moronic can you get? Is it mildly retarded or profoundly stupid?

Senator Robert Corker, a former Trump ally and a leader of the Senate Republicans, recently said that the White House is like an adult day care center and that Donald Trump is the Patient-in-Chief. That would suggest he’s going with the senility angle. That is to say, The Donald may once have been at the top of his game but that his mental capacities have dimmed substantially.

I wonder? Does it matter? Stupid, senile, or retarded, Corker suggests that Trump is leading us down the path toward World War III. Like Secretary Tillerson’s, I have high standards and won’t stoop to juvenile and petty name calling. However, I will say that the President too often behaves in a moronic manner.

 As Bruce Springsteen says, “The whole thing is tragic.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T
2 comments
Read more

More Republican dirty tricks

  As a Blue Dog Corporate Democrat, 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson’s votes in Congress go against the beliefs and convictions of progressive voters in our district. I’m one of those progressive 7th District voters. Like most average voters I rarely actually encounter my Member of Congress. However, I recall three encounters with Rep. Peterson over the many years I’ve been stuck with him. I met him at Mikey’s Restaurant, on Main Street in Long Prairie, when he was first campaigning for a seat in Congress. We were both young then and he was full of energy and inspired in me a sense of hope for positive change. Besides, I’d met the Republican incumbent. He was an older man who, it seemed, was operating on dead batteries. I was happy to vote for the energetic Peterson. Some years later I was a delegate to the DFL District convention in Bemidji. Peterson opposed a woman’s right to choose abortion. He was being challenged by a woman who supported the right to that choice. I gave my
Post a Comment
Read more

Step aside Republicans; Minnesotans want electric vehicles

Late last month Senator Paul Gazelka, the Republican leader of the Senate, told the Minnesota Reformer that the Republican controlled Senate would likely fire the acting Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Laura Bishop, if the Agency, at the behest of the Governor, went ahead with the Clean Car Rule. The rule would require automakers to increase the number of electric vehicles they deliver to Minnesota auto dealers. Gazelka told The Reformer that he’d had “a conversation” with Bishop about the rule. Bishop has not been confirmed by the Senate. Gazelka, and his Republican colleagues, claim that electric vehicles are too expensive and that the rule would be a burden to Minnesotans. Gazelka, and the rest of his Party are wrong. They aren’t paying attention to the economics of EV ownership and they are not paying attention to consumer preferences. Way back in September 2019, Consumer Reports reported on a study of Minnesotans they had done in collaboration with the
2 comments
Read more