Oh, to be young, Jewish, and the State Department’s tutor on how to tweet.

Jared Cohen, 27, roughed it in Iranian speakeasies drinking bootleg moonshine, and scarfed hamburgers with friendly members of Hezbollah in the name of reporting on Middle Eastern youth culture. After two books worth of these antics plus sneaking across borders and touring refugee camps, Cohen has settled into a comfortable government job back in the states. Formerly known as Condi’s Party Starter, Cohen is undoubtedly D.C.’s first Middle Eastern social networking tzar, but this new charge can’t keep him out of mainstream news.

He’s making headlines for asking Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have temporarily shut down their network in Iran. There, users are circumventing government censorship to tweet about the violent, post-fraudulent election protests taking place. Twitter deferred to Cohen and delayed the upgrade. E-diplomacy saves the day.

For Cohen, it was just another day at the office. He’s not running for anything at present, but he proves he can jog and wave with the best of the politicians in this guest appearance on the Colbert Report:

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