Talk:Rex Tillerson

Worst Secretary of State
I understand the sentence is cited four times, but is it really worthy of speculation being included? The man literally ended his tenure not even a month ago. It's very hard to gauge the performance of an executive office until time has passed to see what impact it has had. Sovietmessiah (talk) 15:12, 7 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The people calling him that are not "speculating". They're pointing to concrete evidence of an absentee secretary who allowed the department's stature to be significantly diminished. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:34, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the assessment is premature, or at least mis-phrased; and doesn't track the text either. Indeed a bit of work turns up RSs that take a slightly less critical view of his tenure (whether or not one agrees with them):
 * http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/20/rex-tillerson-is-underrated/
 * https://reason.com/archives/2018/03/14/rex-tillersons-tenure-as-secretary-of-st
 * JohnInDC (talk) 13:43, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Another - https://newrepublic.com/article/147447/youll-miss-hes-gone-tillerson-versus-pompeo . It acknowledges that he's been described as the worst, or one of the worst, S of S in a long time; but then makes the case that in some respects he wasn't that awful, and that Pompeo may be worse still.  My point here is not that Tillerson was any good at all, really; but that he does have some defenders, or at least folks who felt a certain sympathy for the unwinnable challenges he faced even if he'd been equipped to meet them.  For these reasons I think that a flat statement that is "considered to have been among the worst Secretaries of State" reflects a bit of cherry-picking (well, turd-picking maybe more accurately - opinion writers, with two cites to the same columnist) and shouldn't be in the lead.  Maybe it'd be okay with an adjective other than "worst", which is in the end not very informative.  "Weak", "ineffective", "incompetent" - those are all clearer, and might be better; indeed the first was used in one of the sources cited for "worst".  Let's please talk about this.  JohnInDC (talk) 14:00, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A couple more - http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/rex-tillerson-article-1.3872349 ("It looks like the worst is yet to come"), https://www.rollingstone.com/tillerson-ousted-trump-state-department-pompeo-cia-director-w517842 ("Tillerson Ousted by Trump: State Department Goes From Bad to Worse"), and http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/rex-tillerson-the-pointless-secretary-of-state/ ("Tillerson will not, as some claim, be remembered as the worst secretary of state in history."). JohnInDC (talk) 14:10, 24 April 2018 (UTC)


 * There is no metric for assessing whether someone was the worst anything except opinion. Including this line in the lead that is not covered at all in the body is POV. These four sources are at best cherry picking and discounting the thousands of sources that have written about Tillerson and chose not to talk about something so meaninglessly subjective as whether he was "the worst". Something something BLP.   G M G  talk  14:05, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that the 'worst' assessment should be left out of the lede unless reliable news sources start to overwhelmingly cover him in that vein (e.g. "foreign policy experts generally consider him to be one of the worst secretaries of state") and unless scholarly assessments overwhelmingly point to strong agreement on the matter. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:18, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a pretty good standard to me. JohnInDC (talk) 14:21, 24 April 2018 (UTC)


 * But the statement is "Tillerson is considered to have been among the worst Secretaries of State", not "Tillerson is among the worst Secretaries of State". One of them is fact (backed up by RS), the other one is opinion. Davey2116 (talk) 20:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * They're both pretty much opinion. And the wording "is considered" implies a broad agreement, when what it should really say is Four people think he was the worst. When we represent the opinion of four sources, rather than the preponderance of sources, that's giving undue weight to a minority point of view.  G M G  talk  20:07, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * And it's actually three people, since separate columns by the same guy are among the four refs. JohnInDC (talk) 20:18, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Removal of the Vote Table
I think we should remove this On Rex Page. The other Cabnet Members does not have it. Thanks:96.36.68.29 (talk) 01:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep I think it should be kept; it's a useful way to convey information that doesn't easily lend itself to interesting prose. In fact, I'd argue for the other cabinet officials' pages to have it, too. Davey2116 (talk) 02:19, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't have strong feelings about this but I don't see a reason to remove it. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep – Informative, no harm done. — JFG talk 19:25, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Suggestion to remove the table falls under WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:27, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Remove - redundant, all the information in this small table is already fully covered in text just before it.--Staberinde (talk) 11:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

George W. Bush > George H.W. Bush
The last paragraph of the introduction mentions Lawrence Eagleburner as George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, but he actually served under George H.W. Bush. It’s also just a clunky paragraph. 207.62.170.223 (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

He has also said he'd support a tax on carbon schemes.
It's worth reading as it's somewhat weird that he says he supports a tax that he lobbies again... 83.118.219.121 (talk) 09:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)