Leaving a meeting at Japan's House of Representatives this morning, I happened upon a group of schoolchildren on a field trip at the Diet, who proceeded to greet me by shouting "YES WE CAN!"Can you feel the change?
Tag: US politics
Obama says what Aso can’t
http://youtube.com/v/VjnygQ02aW4The impression I got from watching President Barack Obama's inaugural address is that he is acutely aware of the burden that has now fallen upon his shoulders.But I also think that in this address he accomplishes what Prime Minister Aso Taro has thus far failed to do. He does not hesitate to state his appreciation …
Importing the construction state?
Amity Shlaes, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a recent attempt to discredit the New Deal, has an op-ed in the Washington Post in which she looks at President-elect Barack Obama's newly announced public works plan.Seeing the phrase "public works," she naturally thought Japan, and wrote a piece about Japan's …
Voters are a foreign country
At The Monkey Cage, a group blog authored by four political science professors at George Washington University, John Sides dissects surveys that attempt to illustrate just how much (or little) Americans know about politics.He points to a study that shows that respondents who were given more time to respond and/or a financial reward for correct …
The Iowa winners
I am back to New York after my sojourn in Tokyo.In honor of my return to the US, here are links to a couple posts at The Reality-Based Community on Barack Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, written by Steven Teles, a former professor of mine. I particularly like his dissection of the sheer …
Can anyone say straw man?
Komori Yoshihisa, defender of Japan's honor Sankei Shimbun's editor at large based in Washington, has "exposed" the alleged activities of Chinese-American groups in putting the screws on House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA-12) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-8) to get them both to support rapid passage of the comfort women …
Fukuyama on democracy
Francis Fukuyama, in a brief essay posted at the Guardian, argues against connecting his "end of history" thesis with the Bush administration's foreign policy. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)I can think of few contemporary ideas that have been more misunderstood than Fukuyama's argument in his original essay "The End of History?" in The National Interest and …
"Nobody running in 2008 is qualified to be president"
So says The New Republic's John Judis, in an article that more or less sums up my take on the US presidential election that is still more than a year and a half away.Judis makes the case that foreign policy being the unique preserve of the presidency, the main criteria by which to evaluate presidential …
Continue reading "Nobody running in 2008 is qualified to be president"
The ‘comfort women’ issue explodes
The news today is that the Abe Cabinet, while apparently still respecting the 1993 Kono statement on the 'comfort women' issue, will not issue another apology, even if the US Congress passes a resolution calling for Japan to apologize.As suggested by two articles in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo -- found here and here -- Abe's …
Negroponte chides Congress
The Japan Times reports that US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has criticized Congress for the comfort women resolution, saying, "Our view is what happened during the war was most deplorable. But as far as some kind resolution of this issue (is concerned), this is something that must be dealt with between Japan and …
Tobias S. Harris 