Photo by Joe in DC

Ever since leaving office in early 2011, former Mayor Adrian Fenty has maintained a monk-like silence about local affairs—even as controversy swirls around the man who defeated him in 2010—while speaking up loudly on national ones. Yesterday was no different.

Appearing on WAMU’s The Diane Rehm Show, Fenty jumped to the side of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in his fight with the city’s teachers’ union. Drawing from his own experience in battling the Washington Teachers’ Union—which yesterday asked teachers to wear red in solidarity with their striking colleagues in the Windy City—Fenty spoke out in favor of teacher evaluations and against tenure.

Saying that he thinks that tenure should be done away with altogether and that U.S.-based unions aren’t living in the real world, Fenty egged Emanuel on. “I’m one of the people that thinks…I would encourage Rahm Emanuel to do even more,” he said. “Let’s do what’s right for kids for once instead of doing what’s right for adults,” he added.

Last year Fenty took his anti-union advocacy even further, siding with Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in his attempt to end collective bargaining rights for public sector employees—including teachers—in that state.

But when Fox 5 caught Fenty outside the WAMU studios after the show, the former mayor declined to say much about the scandals that are still haunting Mayor Vince Gray. Admitting that he’s been paying attention to the scandals, Fenty diplomatically side-stepped any more substantive responses.

“Clearly there have been some missteps, there have been some mistakes, there have been some things that shouldn’t have happened in the past,” he told reporter Matt Ackland. “My hope is that those things remain in the past and everything gets back to normal and the city continues to improve.”

Read into that what you will, but the Examiner stresses that no, Fenty isn’t running again.