Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been given more chances than he likely cares to count to take back a news report that he called Donald John Trump a “bleeping moron.”

Tillerson keeps clamming up. He did it again today on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He won’t engage in “petty” matters. Let’s move on, Tillerson said.

OK, then. The more he refuses to take back what NBC News reported he said the more it becomes clear: Tillerson called the president a “moron.”

The men reportedly have a testy relationship, which is a difficult circumstance, given the state of the world these days. North Korea is threatening to blow up South Korea; the Middle East remains a powder keg with several fuses lit; those pesky Russians keep hacking into other countries’ electoral systems, just as they did ours in 2016.

Tillerson made some appearances today on the news talk shows to say he’s still on the job, he’s still offering Trump his opinions on this and that, and that he intends to keep serving the president.

My question always arises when Donald Trump is involved: How much longer can someone like Tillerson, himself a big-time business mogul before entering public service, continue to work at the pleasure of someone who doesn’t have a clue about how to govern the world’s greatest nation?

Tillerson has exactly distinguished himself as secretary of state. Then again, he hasn’t been given a chance to put his stamp on the nation’s diplomatic strategy. The chaos continues within the Trump administration — and it’s all a direct reflection of the man who calls the shots.

As Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., points out so, um, graphically: You can’t “publicly castrate” a secretary of state. Tillerson insists that he remains “fully intact.”

We’ll see.

I hereby intend to give Donald J. Trump the benefit of the doubt.

It’s a slight benefit. It’s not huge. I’ll give it to him nevertheless.

The president of the United States seems destined to part company with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The two men haven’t meshed. They didn’t know each other before Trump picked Tillerson to become the nation’s top diplomat.

If he fires Tillerson, I can understand why he would do such a thing. No one likes to be called a “moron,” which Tillerson reportedly did this summer in a meeting at the Pentagon.

I wouldn’t like being called such a thing. No one ever has called me a “moron,” at least to the best of my knowledge. I’ve had the pleasure of working with many colleagues over 37 years as a working stiff in daily journalism. Some or perhaps many of them might have thought of me as a moron; they never blurted it out loud as Tillerson did … allegedly.

Trump-Tillerson furor heats up

Have I worked for any morons? Oh, you bet I have. However, I’ve usually avoided saying it aloud to where the object of my scorn might hear about it. Trump certainly has heard about Tillerson’s insulting remark. He reportedly is furious with Tillerson.

Now, having said all this about Trump and giving him the benefit of the doubt, I need to comment briefly on the supreme irony contained in this tempest.

Trump has hurled many insults as a private business mogul and as a politician. They have been hurtful. They have caused pain. They have been vicious. They run counter to the Golden Rule that Scripture tells us to follow, the one about doing “unto others as you have them do unto you.”

The difference, though, is that Trump didn’t insult his bosses. He’s usually been the “boss” in private life and now, quite obviously, in this new job he occupies as head of state.

Still, I am thinking about the cliché we’ve often heard about “being able to dish it out but not being able to take it.” Still, no one — especially Donald Trump — likes being called a “moron,” even if the epithet contains more than a nugget of truth.