Ni ni roku no mo'!

The leaders of the political parties of Japan did not acquit themselves very well in their responses to the assassination last night of Nagasaki Mayor Itō Icchō.

(Click here for Bruce Wallace's excellent account of the crime and its wider social context).

From the clips shown on the morning shows, most of the party leaders could only mouth infuriating semi-inanities on the order of that his killing "made them angry" or "was inexcusable interference at election time" -- making it sound as though the shooter should have waited to kill the mayor on a day less proximate to the election.

The only party leader to not sound like an idiot was General-Secretary Kamei Hisaoki of the tiny Kokumin Shintō.

「民主主義国家において暴力によって問題の解決を図る行為は断じて許されない。」

"In a democracy, the use of violence as a means of trying to solve a problem is simply inexcusable."

All power and more to Kamei-giin for his acute moral and historical sense on this sad morning.