Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Just ducky, I guess

The Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting that a political fund raising office of newly-minted Minister of the Environment Kamoshita Ichirō (Tokyo 13th district, 5 elections, Tsūshima Faction) cannot explain why it paid back 2 million yen of a 10 million yen loan, nor what happened to the unreturned 8 million yen (Japanese only).

So it goes...

Hmmm...why is the Yomiuri reporting this as its top news story today? I thought the Yomiuri editors loved the Prime Minister and his Administration. Is this investigative report going to help "their guy" in some way?

2 comments:

Jun Okumura said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jun Okumura said...

Shisaku, a conspiracy theorist would argue that the Yomiuri is conniving with sinister revisionists to take down Prime Minister Abe as quickly as possible, so he won't do even more damage to their cause. Think, would Republican Congresspersons continue to include George W. Bush's well-being in their prayers if it were not for the alternative?

But if my memory serves me correctly, Yomiuri has been aggressive throughout the whole string of political scandals. I think that the immediate reason for this can be found on the antepenultimate page, where the latest, Kamoshita incident has spilled over. Or more likely, from which the matter has exploded to the front page. This location, not the norm for a political article, can only mean that the investigative, muckraking, (relatively) antiestablishment shakai-bu reporters are on the warpath.

Why let the dogs loose? However much Yomiuri may like Mr. Abe – you said it, not me - it still prefers cash. As Roger Ailes may have said (but probably did not) when he hired away Gore-hugging Greta Van Sustern from CNN, "Hey, she's got eyeballs, lot's of 'em." Dollars, yen, sea shells; the story never changes