gachapin comments

The youngsters truculence

Japanese youngsters sign contracts requiring them to play for NPB before exercising other options? It sounds more like "greedy NPB owners who want a sweet slice of the fees after providing zero services"

Tom Webb: a little Google sleuthing will show you ex-Prime Minster Kan's pre-3/11 plans to increase the consumption tax.

the older the berry the sweeter the juice

Man, it's the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.

Good Friday ref BTW. ;-)

Getting a reaction from China was exactly what Kawamura was hoping for. Nothing improves your local poll numbers like poking your finger in the dragon's eye.

Considering the controversial tax changes he wants to make in Nagoya, trading barbs with China provides an excellent smokescreen.

Minshuto still hasn't figured out what leadership means. Why bother asking the opposition at all?

Cleo, your misandry is unbecoming. Saving the whole by exacting a cancer is a poor straw-man for hacking off another's limbs. Pan's pride is the real problem here.

he is a convicted felon

lol, as if the Japanese court system is immune to political pressure. They can't take the heat off of Ozawa for a minute, because if he gets control of the Japanese legislature, heads will roll down at the prosecutors' office.

Will the JT reactionaries give Kan the Ozawa treatment?

I wonder how they proceed with Ozawa's trial.

Very slowly while leaking half-truths to the media until Noda can raise the sales tax, then call a snap election. If they had real evidence of wrong doing, they would have already locked him up.

Kan was fighting for little guys.

Was that when he proposed the regressive sales tax hike right before the upper election? Or when he closed the door on any future negotiations over Futenma? Or showboating over Daiichi NPS after previously coming out in favor of nuclear power? Can you name something he's done as PM that hasn't been a waffling reaction?

JT Posters obsess over Ozawa without really understanding anything about him, or how politics here works.

FTFY.

And have an unrequited love affair with ira-ira Kan. If you're referring to posters on JT, thank goodness the vast majority of them they don't have suffrage. Otherwise they'd base their votes on third-party innuendo and whether someone looks like a "potato face".

Noda? NODA? DPJ's tagline should be, "Professional Opposition Party Seeks Jiminto-lite candidate for interim leadership position until the next snap election".

This was just Maehara and Kan pissing in the pool because the Boy Wonder couldn't get the job.

Noda is MINO.

Ozawa sunk the DPJ long before Kan ever came into power. Do you remember what a success Hatoyama was?

Hatoyama's biggest mistake was putting the cart before the horse: he should have pressed for a bill or even a referendum with direct voting on whether Japan should still host American bases. If the vote was affirmative, then he should have said, "given that the Japanese people still wish to host American military installations, we must all share the burden; other prefectures must help Okinawa lighten its load". If the Japanese people rejected American military installations, he would have had a much stronger negotiating position with Obama. He failed to solve the problem politically.

That's not compromise, that is selling your soul to the devil.

Are you seriously comparing Ozawa with the devil? You think a return to Jimento political cronyism is a better solution? That's what Kan has done. If he could have won against Jimento without Ozawa's Liberal party, he should have done so, but he couldn't, because he's always been an agitator and not a politician, just like Roh.

That's the pique I was talking about. He'd rather sink the team (and the country) than compromise.

I don't see Kan showing any kind of 'childish pique'. He resigned because that was the deal he made to get through the vote of no confidence and get some important basic legislation passed.

I never claimed he resigned out of pique. He resigned because he was rightly pushed out for bungling as PM. He would have lost the no-confidence vote if he hadn't compromised by promising to resign as soon as he got those bills through.

On Ozawa: I hear a lot of hearsay by uninformed foreigners on this site, but why haven't the prosecutors filed criminal charges? Could it be that their case is politically motivated by hopes that once the only credible political leader is sidelined, it's just a matter of time before their benefactors in Jimento are swept back into power? Instead of rallying the party together and forcing the MOJ to put up or shut up, Kan showed he knows nothing of politics and turned on his own, giving Jimento exactly what they desired.

Considering the corruption found in the governments of the West, holding Japanese politicians to a higher standard is hypocritical.

Not giving in to Ozawa... that alone shows real integrity and leadership in my books.

The saying "Cutting off your nose to spite your face" fits this perfectly. Activists can keep their integrity, especially when they are the permanent opposition party, sniping from the sidelines. Real political leaders compromise. So, beyond his childish pique at being shown up by Ozawa, what else has ira-ira Kan accomplished as a political leader?

Fact remains there have been that many PMs in the outlined timeframe

You're treating them like American Presidents. There have only been three leaders:

Yoshiro Mori (Mori, Koizumi, Abe, Fukuda, Aso)

Ichiro Ozawa (Hatoyama)

Kan had the spark, but the opposition and infighting, all for money-grubbing and personal interests, was the water that kept it from becoming a fire. Politics in Japan is in TOTAL deadlock

He was a terrible politician. The infighting was caused because he didn't pull together with the rest of Minshuto. Before Kan took the wheel, they had Jimento on the run; politicians were fleeing and forming their own small parties because they thought they were finished as a dominant political force.

The deadlock in the upper house was caused by his inopportune sales tax increase (a regressive tax on the poor) proposal leaked to the press before the upper house election. Even if it was a good idea (it's not), why would he make such an amateur move before such an important election?

Give kudos to Ozawa: with a quick quid pro quo with Jimento and New Komeito, he could bring "Ozawa's children" out of the disintegrating DPJ, forcing a snap election in the lower house, in exchange for the MOJ dropping this never-ending indictment.

For all you Kan fans: name one thing he's done successfully as a political leader? Resigning was the best thing he ever did as PM.

If the prosecution had a case, Ozawa would already be in jail. If you don't like him, move to Iwate and vote him out.

Kan was Japan's Roh Moo-hyun: all fire and no spark. Activists make great champions for unpopular causes, but incredibly poor politicians.

Considering Maehara's previous record as FM with regards to Japan's neighbors, I can see why Ozawa would be cautious about having him as PM.

This review is overly simplified. Nothing about Yoshiro Mori as the power behind every LDP candidate since Koizuimi, nor how both Abe and Fukuda were put in until Aso could gather enough support from the other LDP factions to become PM. Follow the money.