The Coming Crisis In The Diet - Or Should That Be Crises?

Japan's government and media have been rather occupied with natural disasters, the passage of Typhoon No. 15 being only the latest iteration of what seems to be an extraordinary number of massive acts of destruction (Does anyone even remember the massive earthquake that shook Niigata Prefecture on March 12 or the heavy rainstorm in that prefecture that destroyed a goodly portion of Japan's most valuable rice crop?).

Meanwhile, off the big screen, a massive breakdown is looming in the Diet, as Hirano Hirofumi, the Democratic Party of Japan's Diet Affairs chairman, is doing as predicted.

Today is a busy day, so I do not have the time to go into the seriousness of the problem facing Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko when he gets home from his uncritical and mechanichal repetition of Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry talking points first overseas trip as prime minister.

However, I would point readers to this Yomiuri Shimbun story on the total hash Hirano and DPJ Secretary-General Koshiishi Azuma made of the very first negotiation that they had to undertake with the opposition. Since the publication of this story Matsumoto, Kato and Matsuno defied an order to return to work, leading to the suspension of their party privileges.

When a person's assistants tender their resignations after the end of the very first project they undertake, you would not be far wrong in expecting nothing but trouble ahead.