She Doesn't Do Subtlety

The other day I offered the proposition that Diet dissolution of November 16 had no common name. Historically dissolutions have common names, identifiers of the political crisis that had triggered the dissolution. The most entertaining is probably the Bakayaro Dissolution of 1953, when Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida was forced to call an election after shouting "You moron" (bakayaro)) at an opposition lawmaker. Others have been more substantive, such as the Consumption Tax Dissolution of 1990 and the Post Office Reform (Yusei) Dissolution of 2005.

Election 2012 seems to lack a moniker, though. Wikipedia suggests (Link) that it should be called the Soon Dissolution, in reference to Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's promise to Tanigaki Sadakazu on August 8 to hold an election "soon" (chikai uchi ni). However, none of the protagonists seem to have made frequent use of that expression during the campaign.

Yesterday soon-to-be ex-minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and ex-member of the House of Representatives Tanaka Makiko revealed her nominee for the dissolution's name, demonstrating once again her demure, tasteful way with words:

"It was a dissolution of a Prime Minister who felt pressed to quit. It's the 'Suicide Terrorist Bomber Dissolution' (jibaku tero kaisan) I thought to myself. And so it became."

(Link - J)

Tanaka Makiko: a sassy, brassy but perhaps not quite classy lady.

She is not even technically correct. A suicide bomber targets enemies or innocents. The persons worst affected by Noda's dissolution were neither.

Leaving The Hotel California

Okumura Jun has put up a series of seminal posts over the last few days at GlobalTalk 21. I suggest you check them out.

On the subject of checking out, Okumura-san is correct in stating that Section 4.2 of the By-Laws of the Democratic Party of Japan (Link-J) imprisoning Diet members inside the party until such time as their resignations have been ratified by the Executive Council (jonnin kanjikai) is in abeyance, as the dissolution of the Diet -- which the Emperor, despite the legal and constitutional issues, solemly decreed* -- strips all the House's members of their badges.

So you do not have to die to get out of the DPJ (Link). All you have to do is wait for the Prime Minister (through a dissolution) or the Constitution (through the four-year term limit) to set you free.

So why did eight members of the Diet submit their resignations to DPJ Secretary-General Koshi'ishi Azuma this week, when the Diet dissolution was going to free them to hook up with any party they pleased? For the publicity, of course, but also to humiliate the Prime Minister. It is only fair, for they feel humiliated by him.

The big news was the last minute resignation of Fukuda Eriko (Nagasaki District #1, 1 election to the Diet) the former leader of the Kyushu Plaintiffs in the Tainted Blood Products lawsuit (Link - J). Though incredibly young (32) and a first-termer, she nevertheless commands respect (Link). Her departure represents a huge, though not unexpected, loss for the DPJ and a huge shot of adrenaline for Tanioka Kuniko's Green Breeze Party (Link). As the embodiment of resistance to government intransigence and shirking of responsibility, Fukuda helped make credible the DPJ's pledge to put policy making in the hands of politicians rather than leaving everything to the bureaucrats.

The DPJ, which suffers from the image of being the guy's party (just look at the Cabinet) has lost one of its iconic woman members.

Speaking of prominent women members of the DPJ, Minister of Education, Sports, Science, and Technology Tanaka Makiko is hopping mad at the Prime Minister's decision to call an election (Link - J). She did, as Cabinet member, join in the issuance of a Cabinet Decision (kakugi kettei) ratifying the dissolution of the Diet. From her disparagement of the timing of the dissolution, however, it is hard to imagine her and her husband sticking around.

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* It was jarring to hear the Speaker read out the Emperor's Diet dissolution letter. His Highness speaks and writes in curlicues of grammar and euphemism most of the time. The message to the Diet, however, was in the plain form (e.g. - "kaisan suru").

Tanaka Makiko's Apology

So Tanaka Makiko has chosen the wise route of making a public apology for having had the temerity, as Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, to initiate and implement policy, when it is well known that policy making should be left in the hands of bureaucrats who in no way attempt to maximize their post-retirement value by approving projects of questionable value to the public. The Yomiuri Shimbun provides the story as it should be understood by any decent person. (Link)

That Yomiuri staff assigned to report on the ministries have an incentive to support the bureaucrats, who are a permanent feature, rather than the minister, who is a very temporary entity, has nothing to do with the way Tanaka's behavior has been portrayed either now or during her stint as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Tanaka's apology was not sincere. Resignation would be sincere. Apologizing and staying on is to put a facade of contrition. As Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko probably explained to her in their private meeting this week, while letting the bureaucrats make decisions without political oversight is letting the inmates run the asylum -- as the compilation of the supplementary budget for recovery and reconstruction has shown (Link and Link)-- he and the Democratic Party of Japan cannot take the bureaucrats on right now, as the government and the party are engaged in a death struggle with the Liberal Democratic Party. "Just say the words, bow your head and forget about it," I can imagine him telling her.

It is unlikely that the bureaucrats will accept Tanaka's apology and end their attempts to undermine her authority. The LDP and its allies in the House of Councillors will not accept Tanaka's apology either. They have threatened to pass a motion of censure against her (Link - J). Since censure is a symbolic and thus cost-free way of scoring political points, having made the threat the opposition is sure to carry it out, probably on the last day of the extraordinary Diet session.

The apology will also not defang the news media complex. It has invested its reputation in a master narrative of a loud, mercurial, headstrong and insecure (and there is nothing in that depiction that makes a play on demeaning conventional attitudes regarding Minister Tanaka's sex) individual who has no business being in a position of authority -- and will certainly not back off now that she has said, "Sorry (though I don't really mean it) for everything."

Tanaka, however, is not going anywhere. Noda is not going to ask for the resignation of the Cabinet's only woman. Resignation would furthermore be pointless, as the current Cabinet is only (and this too Noda must have explained to Tanaka) playing a caretaker role. Its purpose is to simply exist, not lead, as the DPJ bides its time, engaged as it is in a murky and dismal struggle against the LDP over the bond issuance bill and electoral district reforms.

What role does apology play in public interaction? Where if anywhere, is its ultimate anchorage point? I confess ignorance. If apology is a performance, and the main political players have incentives to ignore it, or if everyone understands from his or her own experience that apology is ritualized and insincere, who then is the audience?

Oh Yeah, Sure, Blame The Assistant

In a move that smacks of desperation, Defense Minister Tanaka Naoki sacked his bureaucrat minder Mannami Manabu on Saturday. Replacing Mannami will be Yoshida Takahiro, the minder for former Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi. (J)

The move is not entirely cynical. At the time Kitazawa was named defense minister, he was basically a novice at defense issues. Still, with Yoshida's steady hand on the tiller, Kitazawa managed to serve with distinction if not inspiration in two successive Democratic Party of Japan-led cabinets.

Mannami, however, was unable to corral the worst instincts of his two charges, former Defense Minister Ichikawa Yasuo and Tanaka. That the House of Councillors censured Ichikawa for his idiotic remarks and general lack of knowledge was a black mark on Mannami's record.

Tanaka's move, however, smells to high heaven. The news media are speculating that Tanaka has taken cues from his wife, the more famous Makiko, whose tenure at the Foreign Ministry was rife with sudden and wrenching personnel changes. (E)

Just watching Tanaka bumbling, stumbling, umming and ahhing in Diet committee testimony, making, for example, his already much-mocked pledge to give up his coffee habit (E) shows a man so far out of his depth one cannot even see the top of his scalp above the waterline.

You say Iejima, I say Iojima

Should Tanaka soon get the boot, he will leave behind a trinket for geography buffs.

During his embarrassing visit to Okinawa last month, Tanaka paid a social call on Okinawa Governor Nakaima Hirokazu. Tanaka tried to make small talk, telling how his family had come to Okinawa Prefecture to vacation many times, visiting places including Iojima (or Iwojima, as it is more commonly written in English).

Only, of course, Iojima is not in Okinawa Prefecture. The famous battleground is at the tail end of the Ogasawara Islands chain, thousands of kilometers away from Okinawa.

What Minister Tanaka had been trying to say was Iejima, which is part of the Okinawa island chain -- as the minister's staff made clear after the awkward meeting (J).

As it turns out, there is not even an Iojima anymore. According to an announcement of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan of June 18, 2007, "Iojima" is now officially "Ioto" -- where the character for "island" is to be read in the Chinese, not the Japanese fashion. (J - check out the Powerpointesque explanation with arrows at the bottom of the press release)

Just to be on the safe side of this issue, during Diet questioning from House of Representatives member from Okinawa Teruya Masaaki on February 2, an aide, most likely Mannami, wrote out in kana "i-o-u-to-u" so that Tanaka, should Teruya ask him about his Iejima-Iojima mixup, might respond using the island's official name.

Seeing the passing of the note, the either crestfallen or exasperated Teruya could only blurt out, "Oh c'mon. Don't be instructing him." (J - ibid)

Tanaka Naoki And Censure

Yesterday was an another bad day in the House of Representatives Budget Committee for beleaguered Minister of Defense Tanaka Naoki. Opposition questioners summoned him to the microphone an astonishing 50 times over the course of 3 hours. The minister with the next highest number of questions put to him was Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hirano Hirofumi. He answered only 5 questions. (J)

As his stunning lack of knowledge of even the most basic issues of Japanese security and defense has demonstrated, Tanaka Naoki has no business being Minister of Defense. As he has zero credibility in the Diet and in the public eye, he cannot serve as the chief administrator of his ministry. He also cannot serve as a credible representative of Japan in meetings with his international peers.

However, getting rid of Tanaka is rather difficult. A Democratic Party of Japan-dominated House of Representatives will not pass a no-confidence measure against him. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko cannot ask Tanaka for his resignation, as it was only three weeks ago that Noda picked Tanaka for his present post. Tanaka could, on his own, resign -- but that is likely to happen only if Tanaka's wife, the formidable Makiko tells him, "That's it honey. You're done."

The other possibility is that Tanaka would resign or be forced to resign after the passage of a motion of censure against him in the House of Councillors. However, the submission of such a motion is unlikely to happen any time soon. While it is true that Tanaka's predecessor, the equally uninformed Ichikawa Yasuo was censured by the House of Councillors and dropped from the cabinet by Prime Minister Noda, the opposition delayed the passage of the motion of censure to the very last day of the extraordinary Diet session. It was simply too delicious to have the unqualified Ichikawa around, waiting for his next blunder. That Ichikawa learned to keep his head down, not extemporize but instead just read his briefing notes and largely stay out of trouble for much of tenure did not spare him from the censure axe.

What was true for Ichikawa is even more true for Tanaka. Like cats keeping alive the mice they have captured in order to play with them before killing them, the opposition loves having Tanaka around, despite the damage his continued presence will have on morale inside the Ministry of Defense and on the international standing of Japan in defense matters.

While on the subject of censure motions, I would like correct a possibly incorrect impression created by this blog post by Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically, successful censure motions are exceedingly rare. As the chart on the Wikipedia page for monseki ketsugi shows, a blizzard of censure motions were submitted to the House of Councillors during the DPJ's time in opposition. However, the House of Councillors has passed a motion of censure only seven times since 1956. Of these, the DPJ is responsible for only three of the successful motions, the first against Minister of Defense Nukaga Fukushiro in 1998 (Nukaga resigned), the second against Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo in 2008 (Fukuda stayed in office) and the third against Prime Minister Aso Taro in 2009 (Aso stayed in office).

Three instances in 11 years, with only one minister resigning as a consequence.

By contrast, the LDP-New Komeito alliance has been responsible for the passage of four motions of censure against cabinet ministers in the 17 months since it seized of control of the House of Councillors. In all four cases, the ministers in question did not survive the subsequent reshuffling of the cabinet.

Tanaka, if he does not resign of his own accord, would clearly be the fifth in the line, except, of course, that the opposition has an incentive to censure Prime Minister Noda first for having appointed the flailing Tanaka to his ministerial post.