Iran's Blogging President

New York Times correspondent Nazila Fathi, writing from Tehran, Iran, says "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of net surfers and instant messages.

"Yet, it turns out, the man is a blogger," she notes in an article I read in the December 15, 2007, StarTribune.com of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

Fathi said, "Equally surprising for a leader known for a thundering public presence, his blog is not especially tough. He condemns Washington's policies, but writes infrequently and more ponderously than in his famously confrontational speeches. Yet the reader comments posted alongside his own seem far less censored and harsher than one might expect."

It doesn't surprise me that he is less harsh than he is often portrayed. I suspect much of what we read about foreign leaders our government despises is propaganda. The same goes for the way U.S. leaders are sometimes portrayed in countries at odds with the U.S.

 If you're inclined to read more about the Iranian leader's blogging, see "Iran's president gets personal in blog.

Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nazila Fathi, New York Times