The Forest for the Trees

I guess if you want to make an impact, show that you are opening up the Cabinet, making it seem less opaque and more relevant, you should announce after days of excrutiating public disdain the appointment of two minor figures possessing exactly the same last name †.

"Yes, here they are, your new ministers, Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Hayashi. Mr. Hayashi will be in charge of the economy and fiscal policy while Mr. Hayashi here will be in charge of the National Public Safety Commission. Mr. Hayashi, as you well know, is a graduate from the Harvard School of Public Policy and the former minister of defense, while Mr. Hayashi is reprising his previous post of Director-General of the NPSC."

Yes *sigh* they are also both legacy politicians. Both of their fathers served in the Diet and the Cabinet: Hayashi's father as Minister of Finance and Hayashi's father as the Director-General of the Environment Agency.

Oh, and the Prime Minister gave up on trying to dump any of his top four lieutenants in the Liberal Democratic Party (the so-called yonyaku) meaning he punted on what was his last chance to dump what have been the least helpful of his allies.

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† Hayashi, which means "forest."