Could Not Happen To A Nicer Guy

If you are wondering why the prime minister and the secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan have more of a bounce in their steps these days, despite a looming confrontation with the DPJ rank-and-file members in a general meeting of the party's members in both Houses, it might be because of reports that the political groups of both Ozawa Ichiro and Hatoyama Yukio -- the current party executive committee's nemeses -- are shedding members like trees in the autumn shed their leaves. According to a Mainichi Shimbun report, several longtime close associates of Hatoyama have already tendered their resignations from his group and group meetings which in the past drew 50 participants now draw only around 30.

Strange how people can lose faith in an individual who turned against the leader of his party, cut a deal to revive the political fortunes of that leader and in so doing betraying the confidence of a fellow rebel, fail to get the deal he wanted and having done so, not kept quiet about being double-crossed but instead complained to the press that the leader he saved is a swindler.

Or musing out loud that he should leave the Diet, then reversing himself on that pledge.

Or promising that he had a secret plan to end the rancor over the Futenma Replacement Facility, then revealing that he did not.

Or that he was utterly unaware of his mother's having donated hundreds of millions of yen to his political support committee and that those donations were falsely recorded by his closest aides as coming from a variety of individuals, some of whom were dead.