Are you ready for this, folks?
This morning, Phillip said:
evidently there are rumors that we may be getting a Madam (Haley) Secretary soon…
To which I could only react by saying, it’s astounding how far a person can get just with poise and social graces. But let’s give Nikki some credit for having some assets: What’s even more amazing than that is how far someone can now get without those things — as proof of that, we have her boss.
Nikki looks good, very good, standing next to the administration that she serves in. It doesn’t mean she’s ready to be secretary of state by any stretch of the imagination. Then again, I’m not convinced that Rex Tillerson was, either. While he may know a good bit more about the world than our ex-governor, he does lack those social skills — and astonishing self-confidence — that our Nikki possesses in abundance. And while I’d like to see some actual foreign policy credentials, at least those qualities are assets in diplomacy.
Now, to digress…
Did you see that list of women? Could they not come up with a more, um, current list? The headline is WOMEN WHO ARE CHANGING THE WORLD — “are,” not “were,” or “did decades ago.”
And yet we have… Barbara Walters, who made a splash back in what, the ’70s? Aretha Franklin, who is certainly awesome, but had her heyday even earlier? Hillary Clinton — the splash that didn’t happen. And I’m a Madeleine Albright fan, but what has she done since the ’90s?
Perhaps the magazine will tell us. But given the shallowness of the few things I’ve read in TIME in the last 20 years, I don’t have my hopes up.
What about — I don’t know — Angela Merkel? Or Theresa May, despite her recent troubles? Or somebody current.
At least Nikki is busily storming the foreign policy establishment right now. But that’s not, apparently, TIME‘s reason for putting her on the list. Instead, they’re still celebrating her for being “First Indian-American woman to be elected governor.” Really — it happened in 2010, and they’ve just caught on to it! At least Newsweek did it when it was news. In fact, they kind of jumped the gun on it.
I mean, come on! I haven’t exactly been a cheerleader (except on her greatest moment, getting the flag down), but the woman’s done more that that! Show some respect — if not to her, then to us as readers!
I dunno. There are magazines out there that are more engaged and relevant than they’ve ever been. I’d put The New Yorker in that category. But TIME, the first magazine I ever subscribed to (when I was in high school), seems to have given up on offering us anything worth our time.
You want to read something that matters about Nikki Haley? Go to that Foreign Policy piece Phillip brought up, where you’ll read:
Haley’s high profile on pressing international issues, including Iran and North Korea, raised fresh questions about the influence and political future of the secretary of state. Tillerson has been strangely absent from the public spotlight, even amid mounting tensions with North Korea, and Haley has stepped in to fill the void….
… instead of news from 2010.
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With women it’s a one-two punch of bad and good. Bad because pregnancy often leads to an occupational sucker punch. Good because women now eclipsing men in college graduation, so it means more women in “serious” private work rather than “sexy” public work if your plan is social mobility.
Like their male counterparts, they are never getting a magazine cover, but they are in places where women really had a lot of influence.
“To which I could only react by saying, it’s astounding how far a person can get just with poise and social graces. ”
I love it when someone finally figures out 99.9% of business models. Suck up and you’ll go far.
Not only did an earlier (August 4, 2017) Foreign Policy article cite the rumored ascension of Amb Haley, it referred to “a few months ago”:
…” A few months ago it seemed reasonable to bet that he [Tillerson] would not survive much past the 2018 midterms, and be replaced by Nikki Haley, the current U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Now it would be surprising if he even made it that far.”
In other words, such gossip is only being regurgitated.
A better reason for Tillerson’s potential resignation is rarely discussed here or elsewhere. Tillerson (think Exxon Mobil) and Trump policy are vastly at odds over the Paris Climate Change Accord, but not for the reason the Democratichs would appreciate:
Exxon, in the dumps lately, had invested in climate change to thwart its smaller competitiors (limited partnerships with unfamiliar names in the fracking industry) . The latter have been relatively isolated from costly environmental regs. of yesteryear. Along comes Trump and the LPs’ (frackers) boom escapes unhampered BOTH targeted enironmental fracking rules and the Accord’s carbon taxes for which Exxon has already invested the equivalent of thousands of acres of tree plantations.
Tillerson feels his Exxon Mobil stock has been victimized. Better him than the whole country.