If I were Dan Jenkins, in addition to being a much better writer, I also would write a novel that included a blustering Texas oilman named Rex Tillerson. Rex likely would be a good pal to Billy Clyde Puckett and Shake Tiller, buying them out of jams and buying TCU a running back who would hit safeties so hard they'd be left-handed for the rest of their lives.

(That last one is Dan's.)

In sad, unfunny reality, alas, Rex Tillerson is the CEO of ExxonMobil and, it appears, he's the flavor of the week in the current Secretary of State sweepstakes. This has engendered scorn from the shebeen's new pal, Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post.

Among the worst, the most preposterous, contenders is ExxonMobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson.

Well, OK, then.

Nezar Balout Getty Images

What's really disturbing is that, according to The Wall Street Journal, Rex and the president-elect have a mutual pal.

Friends and associates said few U.S. citizens are closer to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin than Mr. Tillerson, who has known Mr. Putin since he represented Exxon's interests in Russia during the regime of Boris Yeltsin. "He has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger," said John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration and president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where Mr. Tillerson is a board member.

I honestly believe he doesn't have a clue who to appoint to this job. (There is, after all, nobody called "Mad Dog" among the candidates.) If it turns out to be Willard Romney, then it's clear that the Republican establishment has turned his head. If it's this guy, it's time for all of us to learn to write in Cyrillic. This is not at all normal. As another Texan, the late Guy Clark, once put it, Lord, you'd think there's less fools in the world.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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