What I am thinking...

Re: Aso Tarō as LDP Secretary-General, Koga Makoto as LDP Elections Measures Chairman and faction leaders Ibuki Bunmei, Komura Masahiko, Nikai Toshihiro and Machimura Nobutaka all in the Cabinet

"I like to keep my friends close, and my enemies even closer."

Re: Ibuki Bunmei as Minister of Finance and Yosano Kaoru as Minister of Minister of Economics and Fiscal Policy and what this portends for the consumption tax

"When God is trying to punish you, he answers your prayers."

Re: moving Tanigaki Sadakazu from the chairmanship of the LDP Policy Research Council and Nikai Toshihiro from chairmanship of the LDP General Council to positions in the Cabinet

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

When I saw the new lineup, which nominally "replaced 13 of 17 ministers" and yet somehow failed to embody change, my initial reaction was that Prime Minister and LDP President Fukuda Yasuo had set up the LDP for a wipeout in the next House of Representatives election.

I am beginning to entertain quite a different possibility: that Prime Minister and LDP President Fukuda Yasuo has set up the LDP for a wipeout in the next House of Representatives election.

Popular, stylish, showy and bold Koizumi Jun'ichirō gave the LDP a new lease on life by actively, openly and paradoxically seeking to destroy it.

Fukuda, the anti-Koizumi, the colorless, assuredly unpopular, purportedly indecisive, stand-in prime minister who seems to get blown sideways by the least issue...he...

No...

It could not be.