From Rahmbo to Rahm-bassador: How an unlikely diplomat has wooed Japan

“I’m a diplomat now. … It’s a calmer Rahm Emanuel,” he says with a grin.... It’s already 12:30 p.m. and he had not uttered a single four-letter word, he notes. Not yet. “I mean, I do have a full day ahead of me.”


his appointment still seemed like a mismatch. Emanuel is a famously hard-charging political operative whose reputation as “Rahmbo” was parodied in mostly bleeped-out “Saturday Night Live” sketches; Japan is so polite that it’s considered too rude to tell someone a flat-out “no.” Emanuel can barely sit still; Japan prizes calm and orderliness.

Yet in his first 15 months, Japan has embraced Emanuel. In Japan, he’s Rahm-san, his excellency, the “undiplomat” and a darling of Japanese Twitter.

https://wapo.st/3ptfSjV (No Paywall)