Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Hatoyama At Bay

If Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio was counting on the smooth passage of the national budget (fifth fastest passage in history) and the passage of the childcare support payments bill (ok, ok, so 50% of potential recipients are saying that they intend to put the money into savings, negating the economic purpose of the payments -- at least the legislative part is done) to boost his public image, he should be probably disavowing himself of his illusions this morn.

In the past 24 hours Hatoyama has repudiated his own thrice-revised deadline for a new plan for the Futenma relocation (end of December 2009...no wait, end of May 2010...no wait, by the end of March 2010!) falling back on the least likable excuse ("There ain't no law!") ever and seen his former chief accountant plead guilty to multiple, repeated acts of fraud in his (the accountant's) misrepresenting of 400 million yen's worth of deposits in the accounts of the PM's private political funding organization as donations from Hatoyama supporters (some alive, some not quite alive) rather than as direct cash transfers from Hatoyama's and his mother's private holdings.

Errrhhh...

When the above is coupled with turmoil caused by the Kamei postal reform law revision announcement and the distressing fall in the support figures for both the Cabinet and the Democratic Party of Japan in the weekend poll conducted by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, one comes away with the sense that the PM really needs to start thinking about his exit strategy -- or his exit plain and simple.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:53 AM

    Extending that deadline because 'there ain't no law' might mean Hatoyama might just do the same thing in two months' time from now. Why not? Closing that marine base is really something the US should do on its own, the cold war has been over for twenty years. Occupation of Japan was only seven years.

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  2. Anonymous9:05 PM

    If Futenma has to go outside Japan then Japan will have to develop its own defenses. But seriously Futenma should just stay in Okinawa.
    Hatoyama is a frickin idiot!
    He needs to get lost

    Japan needs a leader with intelligence..not this
    old knuckleheaded weakling of a moma's boy lol

    Defense is a right, anyone is naturally given that.

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  3. Anonymous9:07 PM

    Also:
    Hatoyama does have some good ideas, good ideas that need to turn into substance like
    Asia co-prosperity.
    But Hatoyama just doesn't have steel and brains to get the ideas off the ground!

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  4. Let's be honest, nobody expected Hatoyama to live up to his March (or even May) deadline. While Hatoyama's heroics, promising to move the U.S. bases in Okinawa either out of Okinawa or out of the Country (RE: DPJ Okinawa Vision), were valiant, they amounted to just rhetoric, and very little else. Hatoyama should have foreseen the deadlock he was riding into, and realized that Okinawa had no place within the first year of his administration. In my humble opinion, the U.S.-Japan bilateral tier of this two-level game won't go anywhere unless the domestic issues are resolved first. The DPJ really dropped the ball when they didn't cash in on the opportunity that came when the obdurate U.S. began to loosen their position and gave Japan an opportunity to shelf the issue until the Upper-House elections were settled. I guess now the DPJ just has to hope the U.S. (esp. the rather inflammatory writers at the WaPo) won't publicly call them out, and the two governments will work some face-saving agreement out before July.

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  5. Anonymous10:25 AM

    Several things need solutions
    Birth rate-a balanced healthy population and growth is needed
    Unemployment rate
    Aging population problem and burden
    The economy
    Spending on education

    To name a few

    Seriously Hatoyama is not getting the job done and people have had enough of the b.s seriously

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  6. Anonymous1:23 AM

    What this loser Hatoyama is doing to Postal thing is just another wacked up deal.
    Not a smart move really

    Enough with this guy and the chock full of clowns. Japan needs far better than these major pile of kuso.

    Hatoyama has some good ideas, but someone else, with actual brains and adept will need to get these good ideas of the ground. Hatoyama is just sadly inept, he can't do jack!
    Yet another moron must take a hike like with the other three losers
    Fukuda, Abe, and Aso. Sorry benchwarmer a real quarterback needs to do it right!

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  7. Anonymous1:27 AM

    If the postal thing has to be done, being the world's largest bank sure darn hope it is just done right!

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