JAPANESE POLITICS: STILL WACKY When Republicans lose elections, they often blame some issue they see as tangential to their actual policies -- corruption, for instance -- nstead of admitting the unpopularity of their leaders. They could learn a thing or two from Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, himself a conservative, who recently responded to calls for his resignation (his party suffered a crushing defeat in elections last weekend) by arguing that, far from desiring his departure, the vote reflected "the people's wish to have us reflect on the things we should reflect on and to refresh our minds." So problem solved then. Republicans could learn a thing or two from this guy. Then again, this may be a level of weirdness that's reserved for Japanese politics where one party is stuck with a horribly unpopular PM it can't get rid of, while the other is quite popular but can't seem to find a candidate to replace him. In other weirdness, as Matt Yglesias pointed out, the third party, unlike the other two, actually has a platform -- pacifism -- and yet is permanently allied with the most militarist party, Abe's LDP. It almost makes me feel good about our level of political discourse... almost.
--Sam Boyd
