Will the first blogging president be... Iranian?

Jeff Jarvis blogged Hoder reports that a candidate for president of Iran is blogging. If he wins, would he be the first blogging president in the world? Isn't that ironic? Well, actually not: It's a testament to the cultural change Hoder brought to Iran with citizens' media. It's also, as Hoder notes, a commentary on the Iranian leadership that the site is now down because Hoder sent them too much traffic.

Unless you can read Farsi in script you won't be able to tell too much by checking on the blog but it was up when I checked it. Since Iran is not known for it's tolerance for contact from the outside, I wonder what the secret police (are they still called the Savak like they were under the Shah?) will think when they see all of these Westerners checking out the blog.

Hoder (a blogger born in Tehran but now living in Toronto, Canada) said I'm really happy that our efforts and time we've spent to promote weblogs is paying off and now more and more Iranian politicians are turning to blogging. This is good for both them and us. It makes them more aware of what people want which in turn make them different rulers. I only wish that Iran's Supreme leader, Khamanei, had a blog, or at least were reading weblogs. because, as I've usually said, he would rule differently.

Mr. Behi (an Iranian blogger blogging in English) said Dr. Mostafa Moein is known as one of the pioneering reformists in the cabinet of President Mohamad Khatami. When he relinquished his position of minister of Science, Research and Technology as a result of pressure from the conservatives, the hope for success of the reformists to truly confront the conservatives was already being perished.... It is not clear to me why he is running for presidency anyway as his team have already demolished the hope for effectiveness of the reforms and it is clear that they are handicapped by the rest of the "selected" wings of the government. I would only miss the reformists for (almost) open-minded decisions they made for letting some freedom in expression and social activities to flow (Conservatives did their best to click on ”Undo” and they were smarter than normal, they sometimes even undone further back from the original state).