Shashi Tharoor has an incredible opportunity to foster quality debate on public policy, and stay out of trouble while he’s at it.
He should turn off the tweet tap and blog instead.
Pose his opinions as questions and open up comments. Let users reply to, and rate each others’ ideas. And Mr. Tharoor could moderate comments.
From his much-maligned Twitter stream could then flow (benign) personal updates and links to these blog posts.
Mr. Tharoor’s blog could do to public policy debate what Fred Wilson’s blog has done to debate on the consumer web.
It could, at its best, be an oasis of reasoned opinion in a heated desert of endless polarized knee-jerk commentary.
Even at its worst, it could save his fledgeling ministerial career.