“Waiting for Superman” is a hot documentary about our schools, not Rahm Emanuel’s run for mayor of Chicago. It’s why his “listening tour” is a good idea if it is partly fueled by humility about his steep learning curve.
A very smart political mechanic and tactician, Mr. Emanuel has been characteristically focused during his campaign preamble. He has dined with potential donors, like Sam Zell, the real estate broker. He has talked to sharp folks about issues. He has taken the temperature of potential rivals.
That’s all predictable. But the challenges he would face as mayor are ample and necessitate thinking beyond what has been his frequent professional reflex: getting 50 percent plus one vote in political and legislative campaigns.
Daily Archives: October 2, 2010
Rise of the Online Autocrats
The tweets started arriving in August, and they did not mince words. One of the first accused the South Korean government of being “a prostitute of the United States.” The Twitter account, under the name “uriminzok,” or “our nation,” seemed to be part of a sprawling North Korean digital operation that included a Facebook account (registered as a man interested in “meeting other men,” but solely for “networking purposes”) and a series of YouTube videos meant to celebrate the might of the North Korean military.
A spokesman for the North Korean government quickly denied any involvement with the Facebook and Twitter accounts, but he acknowledged that they were the work of government supporters living in China and Japan. The owner of the Facebook page (which the Palo Alto, Calif., company eventually deleted, citing violation of its terms of service) told a South Korean news agency that it was run by a Pyongyang-based publishing outlet affiliated with the government. Apparently, even the notoriously isolated rulers of North Korea know how to practice what the U.S. State Department calls “21st-century statecraft.”