Editorial: Rahm reemerges, ruffles Japanese feathers, plays long political game

Ambassador Rahm Emanuel never was going to stay diplomatically quiet in Japan for long.

The former Chicago mayor has reemerged in recent weeks, taping an encouraging video for Brandon Johnson (who may or may not have welcomed the gesture), rubbing elbows with “dear friend” Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the G7 summit in Hiroshima and celebrating the new 10-year, $100 million, quantum-centric supercomputing partnership between the University of Chicago, the University of Tokyo and IBM.

Emanuel also has been heralding another strategic link involving Chicago, Tokyo and Google, with Google investing up to $50 million over 10 years, to develop a “fault-tolerant quantum computer” (tolerance sounds like a good thing) and train humans to work in its wake. And he’s been poking at China, to boot.

But the most striking news is Emanuel gathering a group of fellow diplomats to make a little video and nudge Japan to recognize LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage. That ruffled Japanese feathers because diplomats aren’t supposed to meddle in domestic affairs, especially when it comes to contentious issues currently under debate. There’s a good reason for that, of course, and the U.S. rarely has taken kindly to diplomats from other nations getting involved in domestic politics.

Emanuel has said that all he is doing in promoting the policy of the U.S. government he represents, and you could argue that diplomats have tried to get the country of their posting to be more like home for as long as there have been diplomats. And we certainly would join him in advocating for LGBTQ rights.

But we weren’t surprised that Emanuel’s advocacy made headlines in progressive-friendly places such as The New York Times. Our former mayor always has been adept at media strategy and the long political game.

If you recall, Emanuel was pretty much a shoo-in for secretary of transportation, a job he craved and for which he exhibited strong qualifications, until activists such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, started loudly complaining about what they saw as his permanently disqualifying efforts to hinder the release of the video of Laquan McDonald being murdered by a Chicago police officer. Back in 2020, Emanuel fans, including former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were lobbying for him to get the DOT position, rightly arguing that improved transportation (O’Hare, the River Walk, the Lakefront bike path, The 606) was one of Emanuel’s legacies as mayor.

Given that union leaders were also less than enthused, DOT proved a political ask too risky for Biden and his then-chief of staff Ron Klain and, instead, Emanuel was shipped off to Japan, where some of those same activists snarked that he could do no harm.

But Emanuel is a shrewd and tough survivor, and he clearly is in the business of rehabilitating his progressive credentials, given that diplomatic assignments only last so long and there may well be a second Biden term to think about, replete with some job openings nearer to home.

We admired the well-targeted chutzpah, and we note the value for Chicago of a former mayor with White House clout who still is promoting our city’s great universities, while keeping a big toe in the national political arena.

Will his Japan doings appease Emanuel’s detractors on the left? Only time will tell.

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