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New Kid on the Blog: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Talk about your blogfathers! Iranian President Ahmadinejad has taken to blogging. As relayed by the Guardian's Brian Whittaker (the site is down at this writing), the first (and so far only) entry is pretty ho-hum. (No "Wanker of the Day," no "Yglesias Award," no Bush-bashing, no "Cheers and Jeers," no "Why oh why can't we have a better...Council of Guardians?" -- at least not yet.)

After my birth - the fourth one in the family," Ahmadinejad writes, "my family was under more pressures.

My father had finished six grade of elementary school. He was a hard-bitten toiler blacksmith, a pious man who regularly participated in different religious programs. Even though never the dazzling look of the world was appealing to him, but the pressure of the life caused that he decided to migrate to Tehran when I was one year old. We chose to live in south central part of Tehran where is called Pamenar.

He concludes, teasingly.

I will continue this topic later on as it took long in the beginning. From now onwards, I will try to make it shorter and simpler. With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted fifteen minutes.

Whittaker is unmoved.

All this underlines the fact that Ahmadinejad doesn't really get the point of blogging. A presidential blog is almost a contradiction in terms: blogs represent the voice of ordinary people, not politicians who are pretending to be ordinary people. And of course ordinary people who blog in Iran and other parts of the Middle East risk ending up in jail.

I say give him time to, you know, find his voice.

Comments

Perhaps Mel Gibson will guest blog from time to time...?

Posted by: Nick on 08/14/06 at 11:23 AM

And maybe President Bush will guest blog too?

You know, answer that 18 page letter he got way back - in 'allotted fifteen minutes', with fifteen typos.

Posted by: Sonal Panse on 08/14/06 at 4:47 PM

I would love to read his blog and memoirs of his days when he lead the american hostage situation in Iran. That would be a bestseller.

Posted by: Dr,Q on 08/15/06 at 2:12 AM

Hostile, hostile, hostile. America, full of aggression and venom. For what? Is this still MoJo, a site for open minds, or another typical mass-mind space where we all get together and decide who's in and out? Innocence so far gone; no taste for sincerity. Who will stand in the way of the reckless, insensitive American imperial warmongers if not for you? To discourage and disparage discussion is playing cleanly into the hands of your politicians and militants. And is "fifteen typos" more egregious than your tax dollars being marked for the possible soon-to-come annihilation of the gentle people of Iran? The Middle East is already drowning in the chaos created by American blood-letting. Can no one over there actually listen to what Mr. Ahmadinejad has to say? Beware: your own growing hubris.

Posted by: sihlok on 08/19/06 at 8:54 PM

Sihlok . . .

I read his blog. He seems to be trying to say that he is just an ordinary likable but frightenly simple-minded guy—like GW. (Can't argue with that.) And both are apparently pathological liars . . . tho supposedly what's his name is Islamic and could not be a dry-drunk (?) I'm not sure which is the most dangerous or most poisonous to worldwide good will. It may be a toss-up.

Posted by: John Bland on 08/22/06 at 11:48 PM