Television stations last night started showing video of previous "cold medicine incidents" involving Finance Minister Nakagawa Shōichi, with snarky subtitles affixed.
Either Prime Minister Asō Tarō accepts Nakagawa's resignation, or demands it, or they are both gone.
It would be interesting to find out whether or not it was significant that the incident took place at a joint Ministry of Finance-Bank of Japan press conference. If Nakagawa had only had the MOF press club members in the room, the stunning video might have never seen the light of day. With the BOJ press club members in the crowd, however, the broad distribution of the footage would seem a foregone conclusion. Members of the BOJ press club would hardly feel a need to suppress the video--not when it offered such a delicious chance to boost the BOJ's status vis-a-vis the haughty MOF.
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3 comments:
Does he not deserve some empathy instead of so much glee?
On an unrelated issue: I tried to find the appropriate post from last year for this, but it was too difficult...
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/02/09/090209fa_fact_groopman
Presumably, Nakagawa's resignation would be an admission that he did, in fact, turn up drunk to a G7 press conference. Which in turn, as you rightly pointed out yesterday, would raise yet more questions about Aso's decision to appoint him in the first place.
By not resigning, we can maintain the polite fiction that jetlag, some cold medicine, and the merest sip of wine at lunch was responsible for Nakagawa's performance. And sadly, by the same stroke, deny him the help and empathy he so clearly needs.
Ach, Bloomberg just reported he's going to resign. Shows how much I know...
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